HM  YIE¥S 


OF 


CREATIOK. 


MOoes. 


f.  6^*^.2. 


Stom  f^e  £i6rar^  of 

(pxofcBBox  TJJiffidtn  J^enrg  (Breen 

(J$equeaf^cb  fig  ^im  to 
f ^e  £i6rari5  of 

(Princeton  C^eofogtcaf  ^eminarg 

BS  651  ,M66  1895 
Moore,  George  R. 
Bible  views  of  creation 


BIBLE  VIEWS  OF  CREATION. 


'bible  views 

OF 

CREATION 


BY 
REV.  GEORGE  R.  MOORE 


^ 


Philadelphia 

JOHN  McGILL   WHITE    AND    COMPANY 

1328  Chestnut  Street. 


CopyrighLed  i8gs 
BY  GEORGE   R.    MOORE 

All  Rights  Reserved. 


TO  BIBLE  STUDENTS. 


To  Bible  Students  the  following  pages 
;are  respectfully  dedicated. 

G.  R.  M. 


Sc\oT>CO  '^^  ^^^  reading  aright  the  reve- 
lations of  God  in  nature  and 
the  Bible. 

Nothing  is  scientific  that  is  out  of  har- 
mony with  any  truth  from  any  source. 

"  Consider  the  lillies  of  the  field."— Matt. 

6:28. 

"  And  this  is  life  eternal,  that  they 
might  know  thee  the  only  true  God,  and 
Jesus  Christ,  whom  thou  hast  sent." — 
John,  17:3. 


Bil)le  Yiews  of  Creation, 


"  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven 
and  the  earth." — Gen.  i  :  i. 

"  By  the  word  of  the  Lord  were  the  heav- 
■ens  made,  and  all  the  host  of  them  by  the 
breath  of  his  mouth." — Ps.  xxxiii :  6. 

"Through  faith  we  understand  that  the 
worlds  were  framed  by  the  word  of  God,  so 
that  things  which  are  seen  were  not  made  of 
things  which  do  appear." — Heb.  xi :  3. 

The  Bible  does  not  make  the  mistake  of 
alluding  to  our  world  as  of  a  separate  crea- 
tion from  the  other  parts  of  the  universe.  It 
presents  the  universe  as  the  creation  of  God 
in  unity,  and  then  the  earth  for  our  special 
consideration. 

Having  said  that  the  heaven  and  the  earth 
was  the  creation  of  God  "at  the  begin- 
ning," the  next  information  given  us  relates 
to    the   earth's    substance   as   it    was    then 


8  Bihle  Views  of  Creation, 

known  to  have  been  before  any  change  or 
transformations  were  set  in  motion  within 
it  (that  created  substance),  so  as  to  make  it 
discoverable  as  a  visible  world.  In  its  first 
stage  of  being,  and  prior  to  its  second  stage 
of  being,   "  it  was  without  form  and  void." 

"All  visible  nature  is  a  multifarious  asso- 
ciation of  very  compound  substances,  of 
which  the  particles  must  have  been  in  some 
other  state  before  they  were  compounded 
together.  The  simple  condition  of  the  ele- 
ments must  have  preceded  their  union  in  the 
compound,  and  thus  it  is  physically  impos- 
sible that  a  compound  can  have  been  eternal. 
Composition  and  eternity  are  as  incompat- 
ible as  to  be  and  not  to  be." — Turner. 

It  is  equally  clear  that  the  elements  thus 
spoken  of  were  not  visible  prior  to  their  be- 
ing compounded,  and  hence  that  all  visible 
things  are  of  a  later  formation  than  the  in- 
visible, and  "  that  the  things  that  are  seen 
were  not  made  of  things  that  do  appear." — 
Heb.  xi :  3. 


''And  the  earth  was  without  form,  and 
void." 

—Genesis,  1:2. 


SEEN  AND  UNSEEN. 
CHAPTER  I. 

I  see  here  a  blade  of  grass.  I  am  curious 
to  kuow  what  it  is  aud  how  it  came  here. 
Whether  it  is  simple  or  compound.  What 
are  the  elements  in  it  ?  How  did  it  become 
a  blade  of  grass  ?  I  see  that  it  is  a  material 
thing.  What  I  see  and  feel  are  certainly 
matter,  but  where  did  it  come  from  ?  And 
what  was  the  shape  of  this  matter  when  it 
was  being  worked  up  into  this  blade  of  grass  ? 

Not  seen  here  three  days  ago,  and  now 
such  a  clean,  tiny  thing  it  is  !  I  look  another 
day,  and  lo  !  my  blade  of  grass  is  twenty 
times  as  high  as  it  was  when  I  saw  it  before, 
and  I  say  :  "  How  fast  it  grows."  What  is 
it  to  grow  ?  It  has  twenty  times  as  much 
matter  in  it  now  as  it  had  before. 

I  cannot  see  one  atom  of  this  matter  as  it 


12  JSeen  and   Unseen. 

is  taking  its  place  in  this  spear  of  grass  and 
causing  it  to  grow.  These  materials  are  in 
some  way  being  invisibly  placed  where  we 
now  see  them.  The  matter  itself  could  not 
be  seen  until  it  became  grass.  As  a  seen 
thing  this  grass  has  come  from  things  un- 
seen. 

I  look  upon  the  carpet  in  my  room  and 
think  of  the  wool  in  it  as  it  was  once  seen 
growing  on  a  sheep's  back  in  the  pasture. 
Our  spear  of  grass  may  have  helped  this 
wool-making,  but  not  until  it  was  eaten  up 
by  the  sheep  and  thoroughly  digested  and 
well  circulated  in  the  animal's  fluids,  and 
then  by  some  invisible  selections  of  the  in- 
visible atoms  required  to  make  the  wool 
grow,  it  came  out  upon  the  surface  of  the 
sheep's  body  as  a  seen  thing  from  atoms 
that  a  little  time  before  were  unseen. 

I  notice  the  paper  upon  which  I  am  writ- 
ing. What  is  it  ?  It  is  fibrous  material, 
wrought  out  in  some  way  into  these  thin, 
smooth  sheets  of  paper.  Fiber  is  always  a 
product  of  some  living  thing  that  grows  ;   it 


Seen  and   Unseen.  13 

may  have  come  from  the  cotton  plant,  or  it 
may  be  of  wood  growth,  or  flax,  or  of  some 
other  growth  of  fiber  made  by  a  vegetable 
or  animal  life  in  some  past  time  and  in  some 
other  form  than  it  now  presents  to  us.  As  a 
seen  thing  all  of  its  material  atoms  have 
once  or  more  passed  through  a  state  of 
growing  in  which  they  were  unseen. 

I  look  upon  the  table  I  am  using  to  wrice 
upon.  Most  of  it  is  made  of  wood  ;  but 
there  is  no  wood  in  the  world,  or  knowledge 
that  any  has  ever  existed  in  it,  that  did  not 
become  a  seen  thing  by  growing  as  the  trees 
about  us  are  now  doing,  invisibly  increasing 
their  bulk  as  the  blades  of  grass  do. 

If  now  we  question  any  other  visible  thing 
simply  to  find  the  original  state  of  its  ma- 
terial atoms,  our  progress  will  be  towards 
invisible  fluids,  and  we  shall  find  by  exact 
history  and  careful  analysis  that  the  final 
material  elements  out  of,  and  by  which,  all 
things  seen  are  made  have  been  in  some 
previous  time  invisible  atoms  in  a  fluid 
state. 


14  Seen  and   Unseen. 

And  no  exception  to  be  made  to  this  state- 
ment as  a  universal  truth.  There  is  nothing 
in  all  the  world  about  us,  of  things  organized 
or  unorganized,  that  does  not  bring  to  our 
minds  the  clear  testimony  that  its  visible 
form  comes  of  the  assembling  or  collecting 
of  material  atoms  that  somewhere  existed 
before  in  a  fluid  and  invisible  state. 

I  am  not  speaking  now  of  what  it  is  that 
has  changed  the  fluid  atoms  and  made  some 
of  them  into  visible  things,  but  simply  of 
the  fact  that  they  have  been  changed,  or 
collected,  and  are  now  held  together  in  mak- 
ing what  is  seen  out  of  the  unseen. 

Our  visible  world  has  all  come  out  to  view 
by  reason  of  changes  from  a  former  state  of 
its  own  elements,  in  which  it  was  an  unseen 
existence  and  its  elements  were  free  in  space 
and  of  such  variety  and  number  as  Infinite 
Wisdom  chose  to  use,  or  to  provide  for  His 
intended  use  in  the  making  of  things  visible 
for  this  world  and  probably  for  all  worlds. 

A  perfect  analysis  of  any  solid  shows  its 
elements  to  be  of  fluid  descent.     The  granu- 


Seen  and   Unseen.  15 

lation  and  crystallization  of  rocks  and  metals 
bears  witness  to  the  same  thing  as  clearly 
and  certainly  as  a  cake  of  ice  bears  witness 
to  its  former  condition  as  water.  There  was 
liquid  before  crystallization  and  fluid  before 
liquid.  But  without  actual  analysis  we  find 
the  atoms  singly  are  quite  too  small  to  be 
visible.  No  single  atom  of  matter  has  ever 
been  seen,  hence  by  reason  we  know  if  they 
were  liberated  from  cohesion  and  each  one 
to  go  free  in  space,  solids  would  again  pass 
to  a  fluid  state  and  be  obedient  to  the  law  of 
repulsion.  There  would  then  be  no  visible 
things  anywhere.  The  atoms  of  the  world, 
in  that  state,  would  be  spread  out  in  space, 
floating  among  themselves  and  changing 
places  with  one  another  by  diff"usion,  as 
atoms  now  do  and  doubtless  have  always 
done  when  free  in  space. 

If  now  we  think  of  the  new  made  earth  in 
that  state,  simply  manifesting  the  law  of 
repulsion,  its  atoms  all  spread  out  so  as  to 
be  very  nearly  transparent,  as  they  certainly 
must  have  been  at  the  first,  there  will  come  to 


16  Seen  and   Unseen. 

our  minds  the  most  fitting  descriptive  words 
that  have  ever  been  written,  and  these  were 
written  thousands  of  years  ago,  (Gen.  1:2,) 

"  And  the  earth  was  without  form  and  void." 

Yes,  and  not  the  earth  only,  but  the  ma- 
terial universe  entire,  as  it  first  emanated 
from  its  Creator,  invisible  to  the  eyes  of  men. 

I  use  the  words  fluids  and  solids  in  con- 
trast with  each  other,  so  that  the  two  words, 
fluids  and  solids,  may  include  every  atom  of 
matter  in  the  whole  physical  world  with  the 
ether  beyond  the  skies.  The  two  words  re- 
late to  matter  in  exactly  opposite  conditions 
and  in  all  possible  measures  of  differences, 
from  the  least  to  the  greatest. 

Matter  in  a  solid  state  is  always  visible  and 
capable  of  being  examined  by  our  senses, 
always  has  some  cohesion  of  atoms,  and  is 
capable  of  being  acted  upon  by  gravitation 
and  many  other  laws  of  coherent  matter. 
But  in  a  fluid  state,  free  from  the  law  of  co- 
hesion, we  find  it  manifesting  only  the 
opposite  ;  that  is,  the  law  of  repulsion  of  all 
its  atoms.     Every  atom  repels  every  other 


Seen  and    Unseen.  17 

atom,  so  that  the  mass,  in  the  infinity  of  its 
numbers,  spreads  abroad  as  the  fluids  of  the 
air  are  now  doing.  In  this  condition  all 
atoms  are  out  of  sight,  because  each  one  is 
too  small  to  be  seen  ;  but  when  these  same 
atoms  are  combined  and  brought  under  the 
law  of  cohesion,  and  any  two  or  more  of 
them  are  chemically  united  and  made  one — 
as,  for  example,  oxygen  and  hydrogen 
gas,  each  one  invisible  by  itself,  but  when 
the  two  are  joined  by  electricity  or  heat,  the 
product  is  water,  a  plainly  visible  liquid — I 
do  not  say  fluid,  for,  by  our  definition  of 
fluids  and  solids,  water  and  all  liquids  are  on 
the  side  with  solids.  Some  cohesion  is 
manifested  in  its  formation  of  drops,  which 
is  not  discoverable  in  fluids  or  atoms  free  in 
space.  In  this  state,  the  fluid,  repulsion  of 
atoms  is  the  law  manifested  ;  in  the  other 
cohesion  of  atoms  is  the  law  manifested. 
The  one  force  makes  things  visible  and  many 
atoms  to  occupy  a  small  space,  in  the  other 
matter  is  invisible  and  many  atoms  spread 
themselves  out  over  a  very  large  space.    So 


18  Seen  and   Unseen. 

it  is  evident  that  no  microscope  can  ever 
show  to  us  an  isolated  atom  of  matter.  We 
class  water  and  all  other  liquids  with  solids 
because  they  are  visible  and  have  cohesion 
in  a  slight  degree.  Air  and  all  the  gases  of 
every  kind,  however  many  there  may  be, 
while  free  in  space,  the  light  ether  in  the 
skies  in  which  the  stars  are  seen,  electric- 
ity, magnetism,  heat,  light  and  whatever 
in  matter  is  either  matter,  or  a  property  or  a 
force  manifested  in  matter  and  known  to 
move  in  it  as  a  force  without  being  organ- 
ized in  it  as  a  living  thing,  we  will  regard  as 
a  fluid. 

The  practical  distinction  thus  made  in  all 
the  material  things  in  the  whole  world  is 
between  the  seen  and  the  unseen. 

The  seen  things  are  solids,  the  unseen  are 
fluids.  The  heaviest  of  solids,  as  gold,  may 
be  made  volatile  by  heat,  and  we  often  see  it 
in  a  semi-fluid  state  giving  a  golden  hue  to 
the  smoke  that  rises  skyward  from  the  tall 
chimney  at  the  mint  where  gold  is  fused  and 
liquified     for  .  manufacture    and    coinage. 


Seen  and   Unseen.  19 

^Electricity  has  long  been  called  a  fluid,  and 
there  is  no  reason  for  withholding  the  name 
from  other  occult  forces  exclusive  of  life  and 
spirit.  Let  material  elements  in  invisible 
form  be  fluids  if  we  speak  of  them  as  things, 
and  the  same  elements  when  in  seen  things 
be  solids,  and  our  definition  will  be  easily 
understood  and  applied  to  all  material 
•existences  as  belonging,  at  the  time  we  are 
speaking  of  them,  to  one  or  the  other  of 
these  two  classes — 

"  Seen  and  Unseen." 

The  material  world,  as  now  understood,  by 
itself  consists  of  many  kinds  of  matter, 
seventy  or  more,  the  exact  number  not  yet 
known.  All  these  simple  kinds  of  matter 
are  capable  of  existence  and  can  be  found  in 
space  free  from  cohesion,  and  in  that  state 
we  can  think  of  them  as  a  vast  expanse  of 
misty  matter,  enough  for  a  world  it  may  be, 
but  without  objective  form,  or  gravitation, 
or  manifested,  orbital,  or  axial  motions. 

But  a  change  came,  and  art-like  a  visible 
world  appeared  within  the  invisible  ;  objec- 


20  Seen  and    Unseen. 

tive  form,  cohesion  and  gravitation,  orbital 
and  axial  motions,  and  numerous  other  laws 
of  matter  were  manifested  ;  and  still  the  law 
of  repulsion  continues  its  manifestations  as 
it  did  from  the  beginning  and  as  now  seen 
in  the  air. 

The  aggregate  work  of  repulsion  is  seen 
now  in  all  existing  space  not  taken  up  with 
solids,  and  the  aggregate  work  of  cohesion 
in  the  world  is  seen  in  all  the  solids  thus  far 
made.  To  the  eye  of  reason  the  latter  must 
have  come  in  time  relations  after  the  former. 

There  is  a  likeness  to  this  truth  in  the 
relation  of  letters  to  the  words  in  our  printed 
language.  A  few  letters  (26)  are  the  ele- 
ments out  of  which  all  the  words  are  made. 
Each  letter  had  an  existence  before  it  had  a 
place  in  any  word  in  which  it  is  now  found. 
And  we  do  not  think  of  a  dictionary  with  its 
many  thousands  of  words  as  coming  into 
existence  otherwise  than  by  collection, 
arrangements  and  contribution  of  letters 
from  the  alphabet.  First  the  mass  of  letters, 
then  the  words,  sentences  and  discourses  to 


Seen  and    Unseen.  21 

be  put  in  due  form  for  priuting.  So  in  like 
manner  we  think  of  all  solids  as  made  of 
atoms  of  matter  selected  from  pre-existing 
matter  in  a  fluid  state,  but  now  assembled, 
arranged  and  combined  so  as  to  cohere  to- 
gether in  the  beautiful  forms  we  see  in 
greater  numbers,  thousands  of  times  more 
in  number  than  the  words  of  the  largest 
dictionary  unabridged.  To  think  of  one 
such  object  as  existing  before  the  atoms  of 
which  it  is  made  would  be  to  break  away 
from  logical  thinking,  and  to  bow  a  leave- 
taking  from  our  own  common  sense.  Reason 
stands  on  the  ample  evidence  that  the  gene- 
sis of  every  visible  thing,  and  therefore  of 
all  the  world,  was  in  fluid  atoms  too  small 
to  be  seen  by  the  human  eye,  even  with  the 
microscope,  and  when  so  crowded  as  to  be 
faintly  visible  in  places  it  was  a  nebulous 
cloud,  "without  form  and  void,"  in- 
capable in  that  state  of  acting  conformably 
to  the  law  of  gravitation  or  of  performing 
any  of  the  distinctive  functions  of  a  solid 
body. 


'12  Seen  and   Unseen. 

The  earth  iu  that  coiiditiou  would  mani- 
fest supremely  the  law  of  repulsion,  while  all 
the  other  laws  of  matter  would  for  the  time 
being  be  hidden  from  our  view.  We  do  not 
imagine  they  were  not  in  existence,  only 
they  could  not  be  manifested  to  outside  ob- 
servers. It  is  true  that  gravitation  is  dis- 
coverable in  the  air  and  in  gases,  but  the  air 
is  a  compound  fluid  and  presumably  has 
some  cohesion.  It  is  not  entirely  invisible 
for  its  blue  gives  us  the  sky  over  our  heads. 
There  is  a  strong  probability  that  the  fluid 
ether  beyond  the  sky  has  no  cohesion,  and 
is  therefore  invisible  and  the  law  of  repul- 
sion alone  is  there  manifested,  and  that 
light  is  not  there  obstructed  by  any  atmos- 
pheric color. 

Notice  now  that  we  can  see  no  reason  in 
science  or  in  law  why  matter  might  not 
have  remained  in  that  state  of  repulsion  of 
atoms  unchangeably  forever,  as  it  was  at 
the  creation,  an  unorganized  quantity 
of  material,  and  there  left  for  eternity. 
So    far    as    reason    is    concerned    it    says 


Seen  and   Unseen.  23- 

nothing  agaiust  it.  But  the  Creator  of 
the  universe  had  not  so  intended.  He 
started  what  He  had  made  to  become  visible  • 
on  a  great  career  of  changes  not  yet,  if  ever, 
to  be  completed.  The  Divine  v^ord  to  the 
world  as  a  material  creation  was  that  it 
should  take  up  its  work  and  not  stay  one 
moment  in  one  state,  place  and  condition; 
and  it  did  not,  but  is  still  progressing  on- 
ward in  its  system  of  orderly  changes.  But 
let  us  think  a  moment  of  that  marvelous 
condition  of  a  world  all  afloat  in  atoms  too 
small  to  be  seen,  some  of  them  to  be  made 
into  light,  and  what  microscope  is  there 
that  can  show  to  the  eye  of  man  one  isolated 
atom  of  light  ?  Only  the  Creator,  we  be- 
lieve, has  ever  seen  an  ultimate  atom  of 
matter.  Hence  we  can  never  know  any  dif- 
ference in  the  atoms  of  different  substances 
until,  in  the  laboratory  of  nature,  or  art  they 
are  brought  together,  each  after  its  own 
kind,  in  sufficient  quantities  to  be  apprecia- 
ble. No  single  atom  ever  reflects  light  or 
produces  any  impression  upon  the  most  deli- 


24  Seen  and    Unseen. 

cate  of  our  sense  organs.  Yet  in  such  infin- 
itesimal atoms  did  God  create  the 
**  heaven  and  the  earth."  From  this  new 
heaven  and  earth,  in  such  a  state,  visible 
things  were  eventually  made  to  come  forth  ; 
and  we  now  see  uncounted  millions  of  ob- 
jects about  us  free  from  the  manifestation  of 
repulsion  and  obedient  to  the  law  of  cohe- 
sion. 

The  field  of  repulsion  is  still  as  vast  as  it 
was  at  the  beginning,  but  there  is  now  a 
comparatively  small  field  within  it  in  which 
the  law  of  cohesion  is  exhibiting  in  contrast 
a  wonderful  world  of  visible  things,  and 
the  two  laws  are  now  co-acting  harmoni- 
ously together,  but  in  exact  contrast.  Reason 
asks  whence  came  this  transference  of  so 
many  of  the  atoms  of  matter  and  yet  not  of 
all  of  them  ?  Why  did  not  the  law  or  force 
of  cohesion  which  holds  some  of  all  kinds  of 
atoms  together  in  solids,  a  law  which  is 
confessedly  everywhere  present  with  power 
to  act,  why   did  it   not   make  a  complete 


Seen  and    Unseen.  25 

victory  over  repulsion  and  so  hold  all  the 
atoms  of  matter  together  in  solids  ? 

Transforming  them  from  fluidity  to  solids, 
or  even  to  one  solid  mass  and  nothing  more. 
If  cohesion  among  atoms  had  been  a  spon- 
taneity, an  inheritance  of  force  in  the  atoms 
themselves,  such  a  result  would  be  our  rea- 
sonable expectation. 

But  the  law  of  cohesion  that  has  part  in 
all  the  solids  in  the  world  and  preserves  their 
integrity,  giving  to  us  all  the  variety  and 
beauty  there  is  in  things  seen,  that  law 
was  not  a  spontaneity.  If  by  any  chance 
thought  of  ours  we  might  imagine  atoms  of 
matter  in  long  time  becoming  in  some  way 
magnetized  so  as  to  stick  together  of  them- 
selves, there  would  be  no  reason  why  all 
atoms  should  not  go  right  on  in  like  manner 
accreting  together  until  all  should  become 
one  mineral  mass,  an  unspeakably  worthless 
thing,  and  nothiag  more. 

We',  read  of  the  creation,  that  "the 
morning  stars  sang  together  and  all  the  sons 
of  God   shouted  for  joy,"  (Job.  38:  7,)  and 


"26  Seen  and   Unseen. 

we  may  be  very  certain  that  the  unfolding 
plans  of  God,  the  Father,  were  seen  from 
above  before  such  thrills  of  admiration  vi- 
larated  down  upon  the  work  from  its  high 
witnesses  in  heaven.  But  our  question  re- 
mains—Why did  not  the  force  of  cohesion 
take  in  all  the  matter  of  which  it  did 
take  some  ?  Science  has  no  answer. 
Philosophy  hints  no  solution.  We  can  see 
no  reason  in  the  laws  themselves,  and 
we  have  not  advanced  enough  in  world 
reading  to  find  an  answer.  So  we  must 
look  upwards  to  the  Divine  Creator's 
will.  There  we  find  the  adequate  and  ulti- 
mate cause  of  all  causes.  As  our  minds  are 
constituted,  it  is  unavoidable  that  we  turn 
to  the  personal  being  who  knows,  when  no 
other  cause  can  be  given,  as  in  this  case. 
We  find  the  law  of  cohesion  acting  within 
certain  limitations,  just  the  limitations  In- 
finite beneficence  would  advise,  and  we  be- 
lieve God  decreed  those  limitations  ;  but  no 
man  can  tell  why  some  atoms  were  taken 
and  some   were  left.       As   we  can   see   no 


Seen  and   Unseen.  27 

reason  beforehand,  but  Our  Father's  own 
will,  why  He  made  the  world,  so  the  adjust- 
ments of  all  the  laws  of  nature,  one  with 
another,  takes  us  back  to  the  same  fouutaiu 
of  causes. 

The  Divine  beneficence.  His  love  of 
moral  beings,  the  Fatherhood  of  God  to 
angels  and  men,  is  becoming  plainer  and 
plainer  as  the  world's  career  is  better  known 
and  the  use  of  its  changes  better  understood. 
The  law  of  repulsion  as  first  seen  was  a 
marvelous  display  of  Divine  Power,  but  it 
did  not  then  show  any  moral  quality  or  any 
good  will  to  men,  or  that  it  was  to  be  for 
the  use  of  men.  But  now  it  has  an  exalted 
place  of  usefulness  in  the  world.  It  has  now* 
a  moral  work,  a  work  of  beneficence  not 
exceeded  by  any  other  law  of  physical  na- 
ture. If  we  think  of  what  it  now  does  in 
keeping  the  air  fit  for  us  to  breathe,  in 
keeping  it  in  a  fit  condition  to  bear  the  light 
to  our  open  eyes,  in  a  fit  condition  for  the 
bright  shining  orbs  of  distant  worlds  to  be 
seen  by  us,  and  with  all  in  a  fit  condition  to- 


"28  Seen  and   Unseen. 

make  life  real  and  joyous  and  hopeful; 
whoever  will  consider  the  contrast  between 
pure  air  and  malaria,  and  then  behold  all 
the  indications  of  the  Divine  plan  to  im- 
prove the  atmosphere  of  our  world  by  all 
the  geological  changes  He  appointed  for  it 
from  the  first,  will  not  be  wanting  in  proofs 
of  the  beneficence  of  the  Divine  Will.  All 
-advances  in  science  and  religion  show  this. 
Compared  with  the  very  first  this  is  now  a 
new  earth  and  heaven,  and  the  old  is  ever 
vanishing  away  to  give  place  to  the  new. 
We  feel  that  our  Heavenly  Father  intended 
good  results,  and  provided  for  them  by  an 
ascending  scale  of  creative  progress  into  the 
future  of  the  world  to  come.  This  is  our 
abiding  confidence  in  our  Creator  Father.  It 
is  quite  impossible  for  us  who  live  in  a  Chris- 
tian land  to  feel  that  the  will  of  God  is  not 
beneficent  and  the  safest  guide  to  us  for  our 
own  well  being.  Whatever  we  may  fear 
from  our  own  ill  deservings,  we  do  not  fear 
any  injustice  from  the  Creator  Almighty — 
"  Our  Father  in  Heaven."     No  other  court 


Seen  and   Unseen.  29 

of  final  appeal  cau  be  opened  to  us,  and  no 
other  could  compare  with  this  in  "  Wisdom, 
Holiness,  Justice, Goodness  and  Truth."  The 
will  of  Him  who  is  the  "King  Eternal,  Im- 
mortal, Invisible — the  only  wise  God" — 
holds  the  scepter  of  Righteousness  and 
Good  Will  to  men. 

It  is  rather  a  boast  of  science  to  explore 
all  known  things  to  their  original  elements 
or  sources,  to  a  point  where  we  can  know 
no  more  of  them  at  present.  And  such  a 
vanishing  point  of  human  knowledge  is 
always  present  in  the  final  analysis  of  any 
created  thing,  when  we  must  needs  refer  to 
the  Divine  Will  and  stand  upon  the  Omni- 
present line  that  distinguishes  the  created 
thing  from  its  Creator — God. 

As  we  now  understand  the  known  things 
of  the  creation  of  the  world,  as  we  now  read 
the  world,  the  Supreme  Act  of  Original 
Creation  included  nothing  in  itself  to  be 
seen  of  men,  and  nothing  in  itself  known  to 
men. 

No  one  atom  of  matter  in  all  the  universe. 


30  Seen  and    Unseen. 

furnished  as  it  uow  is  with  atoms  made  vis- 
ible iu  the  heaven  and  the  earth,  was  at  first 
made  large  euongh  to  be  seen  of  men.  And 
this  plan  of  the  Creator's  w^ork  has  never 
changed.  It  is  now  as  then,  first  the  unseen 
then  the  seen. 

"  No  man  hath  seen  God  at  any  time.  The 
only  Begotten  Son, which  is  in  the  bosom  of 
the  Father,  he  hath  declared  him." — John 
i:i8. 

All  life  is  from  the  unseen,  and  all  its 
normal  physical  works  begin  in  the  use  of 
atoms  iu  an  unseen  manner;  in  the  use  of 
atoms  in  such  a  manner  it  makes  for  itself 
bodies,  the  seen  from  the  unseen. 

We  may  marvel  at  such  a  plan  and  won- 
der if  God  could  make  a  world  out  of  such 
unstable  things,  and  so  great  a  world  with- 
out being  seen  in  doing  it.  But  God's  ways 
not  as  our  ways  and  His  thoughts  as 
our  thoughts,  and  His  works  are  not  per- 
formed as  our  works  are.  In  World  Read- 
ing our  eyes  must  look  patiently  upon  the 
things  He  has  made  for  us  to  look  upon  in 


Seen  and   Unseen.  3.1 

the    "  heaven  and  in  the  earth" — seen  and 
unseen . 

Behold  the  witnesses  for  God  !  The  sun 
by  day  leads  the  train  and  the  moon  and 
stars  by  night,  forever  singing  as  they  shine, 
the  hand  that 

"  Made  Us  Is  Divine." 

Truly  the  heavens  declare  the  glory  of 
God  and  the  firmament  showeth  His  handi- 
work. Day  unto  day  uttereth  speech,  and 
night  unto  night  showeth  knowledge.  There 
is  no  speech  nor  language  where  their  voice 
is  not  heard."  Their  line  is  gone  out  through 
all  the  earth,  and  their  words  to  the  end  of 
the  world.  In  them  hath  He  set  a  taber- 
nacle for  the  Sun,  which  is  as  a  bridegroom 
coming  out  of  his  chamber,  and  rejoiceth 
as  a  strong  man  to  run  a  race.  His  going 
forth  is  from  the  end  of  the  heaven,  and  his 
circuit  unto  the  ends  of  it,  and  there  is 
nothing  hid  from  the  heat  thereof.  The  law 
of  the  Lord  is  perfect,  converting  the  soul. 
The  testimony  of  the  Lord  is  sure,  making 
wise  the  simple.      The  statutes  of  the  Lord 


32  Seen  and    Unseen. 

are  right,  rejoicing  the  heart.  The  com- 
mandmeut  of  the  Lord  is  pure,  eulighteuing- 
the  eyes.  The  fear  of  the  Lord  is  clean, 
enduring  forever.  The  judgments  of  the 
Lord  are  true  and  righteous  ahogether. 
More  to  be  desired  are  they  than  gold,  yea 
than  much  fine  gold.  Sweeter  also  than 
honey  and  the  honeycomb.  Moreover,  by 
them  is  thy  servant  warned,  and  in  keeping 
of  them  there  is  great  reward.  Who  can 
understand  his  errors  ?  Cleanse  thou  me 
from  secret  faults.  Keep  back  thy  servant 
also  from  presumptuous  sins  ;  let  them  not 
have  dominion  over  me;  then  shall  I  be  up- 
right and  I  shall  be  innocent  from  the  great 
transgression.  Let  the  words  of  my  mouth 
and  the  meditation  of  my  heart  be  accept- 
able in  thy  sight,  "O  Lord,  My  Strength 
and  My  Redeemer."— Ps.  19. 


"And  darkness  was  upon  the  face'of 

the  deep." 

—Genesis,  1:2. 


SOIvIDS  AND  FLUIDS. 

CHAPTER    II. 

We  have  defined  the  words,  fluids  and 
solids  ;  names  of  all  the  matter  in  the  world 
in  opposite  conditions  of  atoms  and  reveal- 
ing to  us  the  opposite  laws,  repulsion  and 
cohesion. 

As  long  as  the  world  consisted  of  atoms,  all 
in  a  state  of  repulsion  of  one  another,  no 
human  conception  of  a  solid  earth  coming 
out  of  them  could  reasonably  be  formed. 
Hence  the  outcome  of  a  visible  world  in  the 
midst  of  those  created  atoms,  "  without 
form  and  void,"  was  a  transformation,  on  its 
first  appearance,  truly  wonderful  beyond 
expression.  As  things  are  now  manifested 
around  us  the  number  of  atoms  held  to- 
gether in  solids,    the  visible    world,   gains 


o^5  Solids    and    Fluids. 

our  first  attention.  And  we  are  liable  to 
think  of  the  invisible  world  as  a  place  pretty- 
far  away  and  not  as  a  place  into  which  we 
are  born,  and  in  which  we  are  still  living, 
though  it  be  at  the  lower  border  of  it  where 
it  broods  on  the  visible. 

We  a  re  not  told  in  simple  words  in  what 
way  or  by  what  means  the  earth,  "  without 
form  and  void,"  was  made  ready  to  evolve 
the  visible  world  out  of  its  midst,  or  so  to 
divide  its  atoms  that  some  of  them  should  be 
made  to  evolve  from  the  invisible  to  the 
visible  state  and  thus  to  manifest  the  law  of 
cohesion,  while  others  remained  as  they  were, 
spread  abroad  to  the  outer  boundaries  of 
creation  as  far  as  the  law  of  repulsion  has 
dominion.  But  we  are  furnished  with  the 
most  graphic  picture  ever  written  of  what 
the  world  looked  like  when  that  change  was 
in  progress.  "  And  darkness  was  upon  the 
face  of  the  deep."  Gen.  i  :  2.  This,  like 
the  first  view  of  the  earth  after  its  creation, 
was  taken  by  an  outside  observation.  The 
darkness  was  seen  objectively  as  a  visible 


Solids    and    Fluids.  37 

tbiug,  and  thus  cohesiou  was  manifested  as 
a  law  acting  upon  material  atoms  in  solids. 
We  must  know,  however,  that  cohesion  acts 
only  between  atoms  at  an  insensible  distance 
apart  and  never  directly  upon  matter  in  a 
«tate  of  repulsion  of  atoms.  Cohesion  does 
not  collect  atoms  ;  it  holds  them  together 
when  they  touch  each  other  ;  hence  we  do 
not  mean  to  say  in  any  case  that  cohesion 
^lone  makes  solids,  but  that  solids  always  do 
manifest  that  law  to  us  as  a  constant  law  of 
their  existence. 

It  is  reasonable  for  us  therefore  to  ask 
"how  the  atoms  so  situated  in  space  became 
disposed  to  a  simultaneous  act  of  self  assem- 
bling in  readiness  to  cohere  ?  How  were 
they  removed  from  their  first  situation 
abroad  and  apart  and  so  drawn  together  as  to 
become  visible,  becoming  obedient  to  a 
new  law  and  to  many  new  laws  besides  the 
law  of  cohesion  ?  The  atoms  now  cohering 
in  the  earth  and  all  the  solids  of  the  same 
must  have  spread  out  in  a  state  of  repulsion 
millions  of  miles  around  and  away  from  any 


38  Solids    and   Fluids. 

common  centre.  The  question  is,  who  gave 
so  many  of  them  a  rallying  impulse,  a  sim- 
ultaneous mobility  towards  a  common 
centre  ?  In  a  general  way  they  moved  up  to 
each  other  and  all  towards  a  common  centre. 
The  existence  of  the  visible  earth  is  proof 
that  something  of  that  kind  has  taken  place  ; 
atoms  did  come  together,  for  here  they  are 
under  the  law  of  cohesion,  many  of  them 
solid  rocks,  and  every  one  of  them  has  the 
true  character  of  a  transformation  from  a 
fluid  state.  Whatever  may  have  been  the 
distance  apart  of  these  atoms  in  the  atomic 
world  before  they  were  collected,  at  the 
time  appointed  they  arrived  at  the  places 
where  we  now  find  them  in  this  small  cen- 
tral part  of  the  first  created  atomic  w^orld. 
We  here  notice  a  well-known  and  universal 
law  of  matter,  which  is,  that  motion  with 
compression  of  atoms  always  produces  heat 
in  proportion  to  the  rapidity  of  motion  and 
intensity  of  pressure  combined.  We  judge 
therefore  that  the  motion  and  compression 
of  atoms  concerned  in  this  first  stage  of  the 


Solids    and    Fluids.  39 

world  evolution,  by  which  the  solids  came 
forth,  must  have  produced  a  volume  of  heat 
of  such  intensity  as  to  stap^ger  arithmetical 
calculations. 

Heat  by  chemical  action  was,  of  course, 
•one  of  the  forces  in  this  compression,  as 
well  as  electricity  ;  but  that  does  nothing  to 
solve  the  question,  or  to  tell  how  the  atoms 
were  made  ready  for  that  special,  electrical 
and  chemical  action,  either  alone  or  with 
other  forces. 

The  compression  of  matter  by  whatever 
means  from  a  volume  so  immense  as  the 
■earth  was  in  its  nebulous  form,  and  is  now 
in  its  unseen  part,  to  a  sphere  so  small  as 
8000  miles  in  diameter,  must  have  produced 
an  enormous  amount  of  heat  in  the  com- 
pressed materials  ;  while  at  the  same  time 
the  outlying  and  surrounding  space  would 
"be  so  rarefied  by  the  matter  withdrawn 
from  it  as  to  occasion  a  high  degree  of  cold 
in  all  the  space  so  rarefied.  The  compres- 
sion of  atoms  would  generate  fervent  heat 
and   the   rarefaction  of  the  outlying  atoms 


40  Solids    and    Fluids. 

from  which  they  were  taken  the  most  in- 
tense cold.  So  we  may,  for  the  time,  think 
of  a  fiery  centre  all  aglow  with  consuming 
heat,  inclosed  in  a  hollow  sphere  of  vaporous 
fluid  of  intensest  cold.  The  two  states  of 
matter,  hot  and  cold,  are  placed  in  the 
strongest  contrast  and  their  battle  grouud  is- 
now  between  them. 

If  we  stop  here  we  shall  not  get  the 
world's  true  appearance  as  it  must  have 
been  at  that  time.  A  glowing  ball  of  fire 
was  not  what  an  outside  observer  at  a  dis- 
tance would  have  seen,  for  we  find  that 
the  elements  of  the  solids  of  the  earth  are 
not  all  capable  of  being  solidified  by  heat 
alone.  Some  of  them  cannot  be  so  solidi- 
fied. Water,  the  largest  of  all  the  external 
solids,  cannot,  though  heat  is  generated  in 
its  production  by  the  union  of  the  gases  in 
the  chemical  and  electrical  fire  that  forms 
it;  when  thus  formed  into  water  it  is  by  heat 
turned  into  steam,  and  wafted  by  heat  force 
into  the  cold  air  surrounding  it,  where  it  be- 
comes a  dense  cloud  of  vapor  and  cooling 


Solids    and    Fluids.  41 

returns  to  Avater  and  ice.  When  we  think 
of  all  the  liquids,  with  their  respective 
properties,  as  carbon  and  other  materials 
that  heat  would  turn  into  smoke  and  steam 
to  be  condensed  on  reaching  the  outside 
cold  circle  above,  yet  somewhat  nearer  the 
fiery  mass  than  the  circle  of  extreme  cold, 
we  shall  see  at  once  that  it  was  not  the  fiery 
ball  that  an  outside  observer  would  see  far 
away  from  without,  but  rather  the  darkness 
of  the  steam  and  smoke  inclosing  the  globe 
of  fire  within  it.  This  outside  wrapper  that 
the  consumption  of  gases  must  have  pro- 
duced could  have  been  nothing  else  than  a 
globe  of  darkness.  When  a  great  city  is  on 
fire  it  is  not  the  fire  that  is  seen  afar  oflf, 
but  the  smoke.  When  Abraham  looked 
away  upon  the  burning  Sodom  and  Gomor- 
rah, the  cities  of  the  plain,  '*  Lo,  the  smoke 
of  the  country  went  up  as  a  furnace,"  (Gen. 
19 :  28.) 

The  greater  the  fire  the  greater  the  dark- 
ness to  a  distant  outside  observer  must  be, 
until  the  fuel   becomes    incandescent,    for 


42  Solids    and    Fluids. 

however  high  the  flames  may  mount  up  the 
smoke  keeps  always  above  it  with  its  dark- 
uess.  Combustion  is  a  process  of  intense 
chemical  action  in  which  two  or  more  kinds 
of  elements  must  undergo  extreme  changes. 
If  we  think  of  an  electric  fire  8,000  miles  in 
diameter,  over  25,000  miles  in  circumfer- 
ence, all  aglow  under  the  great  open  arch 
of  creation,  and  fed  by  the  inflow  of  all  the 
chemical  atoms  that  became  the  solids  of 
the  earth,  including  liquids,  we  shall  find  it 
impossible  to  exaggerate  the  quantity  of 
smoke  that  rose  to  the  rarefied  ether,  to  the 
cold  above  it  around  the  whole  circle  of 
the  globe. 

Let  us  call  the  earth  as  it  then  was,  '*A 
Deep,"  and  then  say,  "And  darkness  was 
upon  the  face  of  the  deep,"  (Gen.  1:2) — 
A  deep  of  fire  around  which  was  an  envelope 
of  smoke,  within  which  the  elemental  fire 
of  creation  was  making  ready  the  materials 
to  come  forth  in  due  time  as  the  original 
solids  of  the  earth  at  its  own  natural  center 
of  the   world.       Chemical    transformations 


Solkh    and    Flukh.  43 

are   pre-emiuently  like  uew  creations.     No 
man  can   forecast  what  the  product  will  be 
from    any    uew    combination    of   elements 
•chemically  united.     We  have   learned  that 
<;arbon  and  oxygeu  so  uniting  produce  fire 
during  the  process  of  uuiting  and  then  leave 
a  resultant  that  is  counter  fire.    And  though 
to  outward  appearances  the  carbon  is  gone, 
it   is   not.     It  is  simply  transformed  into  a 
gaseous  state  and  combined  with  the  oxygen 
that  consumed  it.     And  though  the  change 
is   so   inconceivably  great,  nothing  is  lost  ; 
and  presumably  these  changes  will  continue 
to  produce  surprising  transformations  for- 
ever,   and  that  not  one   atom  will   be   de- 
stroyed thereby.     Neither  fire  nor  anything 
•else  ever  destroy  the  atoms  of  matter,  but 
'  only   set  them  free  to  form  new  combina- 
tions or  to  go  again  under  the  law  of  re- 
pulsion   and    diffusion.      All  combinations 
are  formed  by  definite  laws,  and  many  of 
them  in  definite  proportions  of  atoms  also. 
Thus  we  see  reasons  for  an  enormous  heat 
in    the    chemical    processes    of   the    fluids 


44  Solids    and   Fluids. 

brought  together  iu  making  their  endless 
adjustments.  But  as  fast  as  adjustments 
were  reached  in  the  formation  of  com- 
pounds, rocks,  metals  and  water,  a  compara- 
tive state  of  quietude  must  have  ensued. 

How  long  the  hot  world  was  kept  busy 
with  its  chemical  adjustments  with  rock, 
metals,  salts,  alkalies,  acids,  carbon  and 
lime  before  the  removal  of  its  outside  dark- 
ness, we  cannot  tell.  Internal  chemical 
action  in  all  the  elements  of  its  mineral 
formation, keeping  up  heat,  steam  and  smoke 
in  opposition  to  the  ethereal  cold  beyond  it, 
would  indicate  a  condition  that  might  be  so 
balanced  as  to  continue  for  long  ages  of 
time.  The  Bible  gives  us  no  hint  upon  this 
question.  We  are  left  with  full  liberty  to 
take  all  the  time  needed.  But  it  must  have 
been  an  exceedingly  long  time  before  all  the 
processes  of  nature  included  in  the  forma- 
tion of  the  complete  list  of  mineral  solids 
now  known,  together  with  all  the  changes 
of  place  and  state  in  the  elements  that 
could  be  affected  as  well  without  the  direct 


Solids    and    Fluids.  45 

rays  of  the  suu  as  with  them,  were  fully  ac- 
complished. Evidently  it  may  have  ex- 
tended through  millions  of  years.  It  must 
have  continued  until  the  world  was  shaped 
up  to  a  great  extent  and  its  crust  became 
cool  enough  in  places  to  allow  carbon  to  be 
taken  up  in  vegetable  organisms,  and  lime 
to  be  worked  over  and  used  by  animal  lives 
for  the  frame  work  of  their  bodies,  that  is 
shells.  And  until  much  of  the  condensed 
steam  upon  it  was  reduced  to  the  form  of 
water.  And  not  only  so,  but  an  enormous 
quantity  of  water.  If  a  fraction  of  the  water 
now  on  the  earth  were  turned  into  steam  at 
the  earth's  surface,  an  envelope  of  fog 
would  again  cut  off  the  direct  rays  of  the 
sun  and  darkness  would  again  be  on  the 
earth  during  its  continuance,  and  yet,  pos- 
sibly, without  stopping  in  a  large  degree 
some  of  the  processes  of  nature. 

I  emphasize  my  remark  that  much  may 
have  been  done  in  the  world  without  the 
direct  rays  of  the  sun,  and  before  the  suu 
could  have  been  clearly  seen  from  its  sur- 


46  Solids    and    Fluids. 

face,  because  it  is  reasonable  in  itself  and 
accordant  with  the  report  given  in  Genesis. 
*'  God  said  let  there  be  light  and  there  was 
light,"  evidently  before  the  firraanent  was 
completed  and  while  the  skyward  region 
was  in  a  state  of  mixture  of  light  and  dark- 
ness as  we  now  have  in  foggy  mornings. 
Fogs  in  England  sometimes  obscure  for 
days  the  direct  rays  of  the  sun  over  their 
well  kept  and  beautiful  fields  and  gardens. 
Probably  the  sun's  rays  did  not  touch  the 
solid  parts  of  the  earth  so  as  to  reveal  its 
own  bright  form  in  the  heavens,  as  seen 
from  the  earth  for  a  long  time  after  it  was 
lighting  the  earth  suflficiently  for  some 
purposes.  Perhaps  not  until  a  comparatively 
late  period.  Certainly  not  until  the  granite 
and  other  primary  rocks  had  been  formed 
and  cooled  down  in  part,  then  broken  up 
again  and  again,  and  seethed  and  boiled  in 
the  liquid  floods,  and  still  cooling  in  greater 
quantities  until  rocks  and  mountains  and 
volcanoes  began  to  make  a  frame  work  over 
the  fiery  deep  and  amid   the  immensity  of 


Solids    and   Fluids.  47 

prevailing  waters,  before  the  fog  could  have 
cleared  away.  It  may  have  been  that  at  any 
time  during  long  ages,  if  need  be,  an  out- 
side observer  looking  towards  the  earth 
would  see  but  a  globe  of  darkness,  for  we 
must  not  forget  that  this  view  was  objective 
and  that  the  observer's  standpoint  was  out- 
side of  the  earth  until  a  iirmament  was 
made. 

*'  God  said  let  there  be  a  firmanent  in  the 
midst  of  the  waters,  and  let  it  divide  the 
waters  from  the  waters."  Gen.  i  :  6.  Now 
the  observer's  standpoint  must  be  entirely 
changed.  He  must  now  be  down  upon  the 
solids  of  the  earth,  which  are  a  very  small 
part  of  its  whole  magnitude,  and  the  fir- 
manent must  be  over  him.  And  thus  the 
materials  of  the  whole  world  throughout  all 
of  its  original  space, including  the  firmanent, 
all  that  was  included  in  the  "  beginning 
when  God  created  the  heaven  and  the 
earth,"  is  clearly  separated  into  tw^o  mineral 
parts — the 

SOLIDS   AND    FI^UIDS. 


48  Solids   and   Fluids. 

Science  teaches  that  all  that  is  known  as 
matter  in  the  world  may  be  conveniently- 
divided  into  three  classes,  and  that  each  one 
of  these  classes  may  be  called  a  kingdom. 
The  first,  which  is  the  mineral  kingdom, 
then  the  vegetable  and  animal  kingdoms. 
And  now  where  do  we  place  the  air  in  which 
all  the  fluids,  the  gases  and  extended  ether 
by  which  the  light  comes  to  us  from  the  sun 
and  the  moon  and  the  stars,  where  shall  we 
place  all  the  matter  that  exists  in  a  fluid 
state  ?  Not  in  the  animal  kingdom  certainly, 
for  animals  have  form  and  organs  of  life  by 
which  they  may  be  known  separately,  even 
microscopic  lives  may  be  known  separately. 
The  air  in  its  nature  is  not  animal  and  does 
not  belong  to  the  animal  kingdom.  Is  the 
air  then  a  vegetable  ?  Well,  vegetables  have 
form  and  organs  of  life,  and  a  place  to  stay 
while  they  grow,  and  where  they 'may  be 
found  to-day  and  to-morrow.  "  But  the 
wind  bloweth  where  it  listeth  and  we 
hear    the    sound    thereof,   but    cannot  tell 


Soluh    and    Fluids.  49 

whence  it  cometh  and  whither  it  goeth." 
This  is  not  a  vegetable  ;  and  now  we 
are  left  alone  in  the  mineral  kingdom. 
Each  of  the  others  has  failed  us.  If  we  can- 
not get  gaseous  fluids,  the  air  and  like 
matter  in  here,  it  will  be  left  out  alone  with 
no  class  to  receive  it.  But  it  is  not  left 
out.  The  essential  elements  of  matter  in 
the  air  and  of  all  fluids  are  mineral  elements. 
In  every  human  breath  there  is  some  car- 
bonic acid  gas,  some  carbon.  And  the  dia- 
mond, among  the  hardest  of  minerals  and 
the  most  brilliant  of  gems,  is  nearly  all  car- 
bon. Reduce  the  diamond  to  invisible 
atoms  and  it  will  still  be  mineral.  In  our 
breaths  the  atoms  of  carbon  are  fluid,  or 
free  in  space  and  in  a  state  of  repulsion, 
while  in  the  diamond  like  atoms  are  held  in 
a  state  of  cohesion  in  the  closest  of  contact, 
like  atoms,  indeed,  but  changed  in  their  re- 
lations to  one  another  from  a  state  of  repul- 
sion to  a  state  of  cohesion.  This  change 
does  not  remove  them  from  one  and  the 
same  kingdom.      Air  and  all  fluids,  as  we 


50  Solids    and   Fluids. 

have  defined  fluids,  belong  to  the  miueral 
kingdom,  in  distinction  to  the  other  two 
kindgoms,  animal  and  vegetable.  This 
should  be  understood  strictly  as  pertaining 
to  its  essential  atoms  in  the  invisible  fluid 
state.  We  would  not  call  a  visible  drop  of 
water  a  mineral,  nor  a  gust  of  wind  a 
mineral.  But  we  must  and  do  class  the  ele- 
ments of  these  things  in  the  mineral  king- 
dom, because  their  essential  atoms  are 
mineral  and  readily  distinguishable  from 
organized  matter  in  either  animal  or  vege- 
table.    All  unorganized  matter  is  mineral. 

The  original  creation  revealed  only  the 
mineral  kingdom  in  a  fluid  state  and  of 
atoms  singly  too  small  to  be  seen  of  men.  It 
is  well  to  keep  this  in  mind  always  in  con- 
sidering the  history  of  the  elements  through 
their  many  transformations  before  their 
present  appearance  in  visible  things  around 
us.  By  the  first  formation  of  solids  the 
mineral  kingdom  was  divided  into  two  parts 
as  unlike  each  other  as  opposite  states  of 
matter  can  be,  and  still  that  dividing  pro- 


Solids   and   Fhu'ds.  51 

cess  was  only  the  beginning  of  changes  in 
both  parts  of  the  kingdom.  As  to  solids, 
themselves,  but  very  few  if  any  of  them  can 
now  be  shown  to  be  in  the  exact  conditions 
of  their  original  formation.  As  to  the  rocks, 
they  have  been  broken  up,  cast  out  of  vol- 
<^auoes,  tumbled  about  and  mashed  in  pieces 
and  ground  to  powder  ;  reformed  and  broken 
up  again  and  ground  and  washed  and  mixed, 
made  plastic  and  again  hardened.  Some 
conglomerated,  and  by  the  mechanical 
fotces  of  nature  thrown  into  the  lodgments 
of  the  earth  where  we  now  find  them.  Some 
in  the  everlasting  hills,  and  some  beneath 
the  bottom  of  the  seas.  All  have  been  fire 
worked  and  water  worked,  and  very  many 
indeed  have  been  life  worked  into  the  soils 
and  chemicals  of  the  earth,  and  into  sedi- 
ments beneath  its  waters,  and  into  vegetable 
and  animal  organisms.  All  the  mechanical 
and  all  the  electrical  and  all  the  life  forces 
of  this  world  are  ever  active  in  preparing 
matter  for  new  conditions  and  uses,  new 
combination  and  appearances,  so  that  crea- 


52  Solids    and   Fluids. 

tion  itself  in  its  graud  career  of  progress  is  a 
(Jaily  promiser  of  a  new  heaven  and  a  new 
earth.  Geology  teaches  us  plainly  that  long 
ages  before  man  appeared  in  the  world  life 
was  here  in  great  power  in  both  vetetable  and 
animal  forms.  There  were  vegetable  growths 
of  marvelous  dimensions  and  in  great  vari- 
eties, and  animals  great  and  small,  from  the 
megatherium  and  other  monsters  down  ta 
minute  forms,  living  things  of  microscopic 
dimensions.  Fossils  of  many  kinds,  both 
flora  and  fauna,  are  found  in  the  earth's 
crusts  after  the  first.  So  prolific  in  plant 
and  tree  growths  was  the  earth  long  ages 
ago,  as  to  support  the  animals  of  that  time 
and  leave  a  residuum  sufficient  for  the  coal 
beds  we  are  now  mining  and  distributing 
for  the  use  of  man.  Also,  on  the  animal 
side,  the  mere  bones  and  shells  of  past, 
generations  occupy  no  small  place  among 
the  solids  of  the  earth,  so  obviously  did 
lower  lives  work  in  ages  past  and  left  the  re- 
sults of  their  labors  in  a  better  prepared 
■world  for  the  use  of  man. 


Solids    and    Fluids.  5'> 

Carbon  was  not  solidified  by  heat  alone, 
neither  by  cold  ;  but  it  required  life,  veg- 
etable and  animal,  to  solidify  it.  And  so  in 
respect  to  the  elements  of  chalk-beds  and 
lime-stone  and  coral-reefs  ;  their  elements 
were  operated  upon  by  life-agencies,  animal 
life,  and  thus  reduced  to  solids  and  removed 
from  the  atmosphere  in  such  quantities  as  to 
make  an  atmosphere  of  use  to  higher  orders 
of  beings.  The  fossils  of  the  earth's  crust 
are  no  very  small  part  of  its  solids,  and 
many  of  them  must  have  been  entombed 
long  before  the  creation  of  man.  Let  all  the 
carbon  and  lime  now  in  solids  as  fossil  re- 
mains be  turned  again  into  a  gaseous  form, 
and  the  air  would  be,  the  world  over,  unfit 
for  human  beings  as  we  are  now  consti- 
tuted. The  truth  of  the  early  introduction 
of  life  into  visible  forms  seems  to  give  a 
reason  for  the  words  following  :  "And  the 
spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  lace  of  the 
waters."  (Gen.  1:2.)  We  notice  that  the 
largest  part  of  the  earth's  surface  is  even 
now    liquid — water.       There    is   something^ 


54  Solids    and    Fluids. 

very  significant  in  the  Bible  names  given  to 
the  world  in  its  different  states  after  its  cre- 
ation, while  on  its  way  of  readiness  for  man. 
First,  It  was  named  broadly  with  its  own 
proper  name  :  In  the  beginning  God  cre- 
ated the  "  heaven  and  the  earth."  Second, 
When  it  began  to  be  objectively  visible  to  a 
very  slight  extent,  its  proper  name  is  re- 
peated and  a  descriptive  clause  subjoined  : 
"And  the  earth  was  without  form  and  void." 
Third,  It  is  called  the  "  Deep,"  and  the  de- 
scriptive word  "darkness"  is  subjoined  : 
"And  darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the 
deep."  Fourth,  It  is  called  waters,  as  God 
again  acted  upon  it :  "And  the  spirit  of 
God  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters." 
It  is  evident  that  the  author  of  such  de- 
scriptive words  was  well  instructed  about  the 
genesis  of  the  world  and  the  stages  of  its 
progressive  career.  But  it  is  equally  evi- 
dent that  he  did  not  intend  to  give  any  de- 
tailed account  of  it.  We  find  that  every 
word  that  bears  upon  the  creation  is  point- 
ing directly  and  with  emphasis  to  its  Cre- 


Solids    and    Fluids.  55- 

ator.  The  object  was  to  tell  2i>ho  made  the 
world  and  not  how  He  did  it,  any  further 
than  a  few  brief  signs  would  help  to  settle 
the  fact  that  God  made  it  in  its  beginning 
and  all  the  way  after  it.  He  gives  the  key 
to  the  study  of  its  elements,  and  names  the 
appearances  of  its  earlier  transformations, 
and  then  leads  on  with  directness  and  force 
to  Theology  and  Religion.  "And  the  spirit 
of  God  moved  upon  the  face  of  the  waters."' 
This  implies  a  life-giving  presence  of  God 
over  the  elements  thus  described,  and  we 
presume  that  the  vegetable  and  animal  lives 
introduced  at  that  time  were  not,  any  of" 
them,  to  come  up  to  observation  in  review 
as  a  part  of  the  instruction  to  be  given  by 
revelation  respecting  the  doctrines  of  The- 
ology and  Religion.  The  distinct  mention 
that  God  did  act  upon  the  waters  and  movedi 
upon  them,  before  the  sun  is  mentioned  as 
having  been  seen  from  man's  standpoint  on; 
the  solid  earth,  makes  it  probable  that  He 
supplied  all  the  kinds  of  life  that  were  suited 
to  that  time,  and   that  all   the  laws  of  life- 


56  Solids    and   Fluids. 

possible  at  that  time  were  duly  inaugurated 
aud  continue  in  force,  wherever  matter  is 
conditioned  to  receive  them,  until  this  day. 
It  would  be  hard  to  show  that  any  law  of 
nature  has  ever  been  repealed.  As  the  tem- 
perature and  food  required  by  certain  kinds 
of  life  superabounded  long  ages  before  the 
world  was  ready  for  man's  use,  we  have  no 
reason  to  doubt  that  a  life  grant  was  Di- 
vinely given  to  all  creatures,  great  and 
small,  capable  of  exercising  the  functions  of 
life  at  that  time. 

It  is  always  reasonable  to  have  regard  to 
the  intentions  of  an  author  in  explaining 
the  words  he  sets  before  us.  Why  did  the 
author  of  the  first  chapter  of  the  Bible  refer 
to  the  creation  of  the  world  except  to  say  in 
the  most  positive  manner  that  all  this,  in  all 
the  views  that  can  be  taken  of  it  and  in  all 
that  it  can  include,  was  the  work  of  God  ? 
and  to  emphasize  it  strongly  as  a  fact  by 
declaring  that  he  did  it  in  such  a  way  as  to 
show  a  series  of  changes  in  its  progress, 
and   to  include  all   that  can  be  learned  by 


Solids    and   Fluids.  57 

human  observation  now  or  at  any  time  ? 
First,  God  created  it  at  the  beginning.  He 
was  its  author  when  it  was  in  material 
atoms  ;  was  "without  form  and  void."  Af- 
ter that  it  became  enveloped  in  darkness  : 
"  Darkness  was  upon  the  face  of  the  deep," 
when  cohesion  took  place  and  the  solids 
were  made,  including  the  waters.  After  the 
waters,  life  was  introduced  in  organisms,, 
"the  spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the  waters." 
life  was  given  to  the  visible  part  of  the 
world.  Light  came  by  God's  command- 
ment. He  made  the  firmament,  and  night 
and  day  became  an  established  fact.  He 
appointed  seas  and  furnished  the  water,  and 
the  air  and  the  land  with  all  the  varieties  of 
Life-forms  that  preceded  the  introduction  of 
man  ;  and  in  His  own  time  he  made  man  in 
His  own  image.  "  Let  us  make  man  in  our 
image."  "So  God  created  man  in  His  own 
image,  in  the  image  of  God  created  he  him, 
male  and  female  created  he  them." 

This  likeness  included  the  idea  of  instruct- 
ing  men    by  the   Divine  example,  the  en- 


■68  Solids    and    Fluids. 

forcemeut  of  Divine  precepts  by  Divine 
■examples.  This  one  principle  started  in  the 
first  chapter  of  the  Bible  and  runs  through 
the  whole  book.  *'  Beye  holy,"  says  God  to 
us,  "for  I  am  holy."  "  Be  ye  followers  of 
•God  as  dear  children,"  implying  a  natural 
affection  that  should  be  a  life  joy  in  the 
hearts  of  men  loving  God  as  their  "Father 
in  heaven."  "  Put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus." 
I  see  no  reason  for  the  mention  of  a  six  days 
which  are  named  with  such  exactness  of  de- 
scription :  "And  the  evening  and  the  morn- 
ing were  the  first  day,"  etc.,  but  to  place  God 
before  us  working  six  days  and  resting  on 
the  seventh,  and  thus,  by  his  own  example, 
made  the  Sabbath  to  follow  the  six  days  of 
labor  just  as  he  requires  us  to  keep  it.  He 
made  it  to  follow  the  sixth  day  of  labor  tons 
as  we  count  time,  and  He  applied  this  mea- 
sure of  time  to  himself  figuratively — the 
only  possible  way  of  its  applicaton  by  finite 
minds — to  bring  His  own  example  before  us 
m  regard  to  the  Sabbath  day,  and  to  show 
that  it  is  sanctified  and   holy,  ordained  of 


jSolids    and   Fluids.  51) 

God  for  the  use  of  man.  The  language  is 
figurative  as  applied  to  the  works  of  God, 
but  it  is  literal  as  it  stands  in  connection 
with  the  decalogue  and  all  other  Scripture 
teaching  on  the  subject  of  the  Sabbath  day. 
We  should  hesitate  to  adopt  any  view  of 
the  six  days  that  would  take  them  out  of 
harmony  with  Bible  teaching  on  the  subject 
of  the  Sabbath  da3^  In  this  matter,  on  the 
human  side  these  days  must  be  construed 
literally  for  our  instruction,  to  give  us  the 
measure  of  time  intended  for  our  weekly  use, 
in  work  or  rest ;  and  figuratively,  to  give  us 
the  condescending  example  of  God  in  respect 
to  His  work  and  rest  in  the  works  of  crea- 
tion. In  the  second  chapter  of  this  book, 
fourth  verse,  in  which  the  Sabbath  is  not 
concerned,  the  time  of  creation  is  designated 
indefinitely  by  a  mere  allusion  to  it  as  a 
fact :  "  In  the  day  that  the  Lord  God  made 
the  earth  and  the  heavens."  (Gen.  2:4.) 
This  shows  that  "  day  "  as  we  count  days,  is 
not  to  be  taken  as  a  time  measure  of  the  act 
of  God  in  the  creation.     A  moment's  carefui 


<60  Solids    and    Fluids. 

reflection  will  show  us  that  there  is  no  way 
in  which  we  can  measure  any  work  of  God 
by  time  measure  as  applied  to  Himself  with- 
out intermediate  agencies.  Divine  acts  are 
not  time  acts  in  the  sense  of  lingering 
through  space  with  no  intermediate  agen- 
cies. God  appoints  the  time  and  sea- 
son for  others,  but  we  cannot  take  these 
up  and  apply  them  to  Him  or  to  any 
■of  His  direct  and  literal  works.  We  can- 
not say  that  God  made  a  mammoth  Califor- 
nia tree  in  one  moment,  or  in  one  hour— a 
tree  that  has  been  growing  fifteen  hundred 
years  ;  neither  can  we  say  that  he  was  fifteen 
hundred  years  in  making  it.  We  can  say 
fifteen  hundred  years  have  passed  since  that 
tree  was  planted,  since  the  seed  from  which 
it  grew  was  placed  in  the  soil.  But  the  ques- 
tion, "  When  was  that  tree  made?  "  remains 
unanswered,  because  we  cannot  discover  the 
beginning  and  end  of  a  Divine  act  in  such  a 
way  as  to  apply  any  time  measure  to  it  be- 
fore it  is  in  the  keeping,  as  it  were,  of  some 
intermediate   agency   put    under   laws   dis- 


Solids    and    Fluids.  61 

tinguishable  from  God  Himself,  although  of 
His  own  will  made,  appointed  and  deter- 
mined. The  tree  has  been  growing  in  soil, 
air,  moisture  and  sunshine,  and  the  seed 
came  from  its  parent  tree.  So  we  may  fol- 
low back  through  mediate  causes  as  long  as 
•we  please,  and  when  we  get  to  the  end  of 
all  answerable  questions  we  shall  have  failed 
to  learn  how  long  God  took  to  make  that 
tree,  or  what  to  include  in  that  act  less  than 
the  creating  of  all  the  world. 

Probably  no  man  living  knows  what  to  in- 
clude in  the  making  of  the  world.  Let  a 
young  thinker  try  to  think  just  what  he  will 
include  in  the  making  of  the  world,  and  if 
he  thinks  clearly  and  closely,  as  he  should, 
he  will  find  an  honest  answer  in  three  short 
words,  "  I  don't  know."  There  are  no  time 
measures  of  any  kind,  either  long  or  short, 
that  can  be  applied  to  it  as  a  work  of  time — 
a  creation  that  was  set  in  motion  and  started 
on  the  career  of  successive  changes,  within 
limitations,  just  as  long  as  it  shall  endure, 
^r  is  to  have  any  being,  and  still  endowed 


()2  Solids    and    Fluids. 

with  elements  that  are  indestructible.  To 
say.  that  it  was  made  in  millions  of  years^ 
and  finished  6,000  years  ago,  cannot  be  true^ 
and  is  subject  to  the  same  denial  that  any 
other  literal  time  statement  would  be.  The 
world  is  not  now  what  it  was  6,000  years 
ago,  or  6  days  ago,  strictly  speaking.  If  we 
choose  to  fall  back  in  the  world's  career  by 
definite  measures  of  6,000  years  at  a  time, 
we  may  repeat  that  time  measure  as  long  as 
we  can  count  it,  and  then  leave  the  question 
as  far  from  answer  as  ever,  and  no  man 
able  to  tell  what  he  includes  in  the  world's 
creation.  Therefore,  there  is  no  scientific 
or  provable  time,  known  or  unknown, 
when  the  work  of  the  creation  began,  or 
when  it  was  or  will  be  finished.  Any  ex- 
pression more  than  the  first  verse  of  the 
Bible  contains  must  of  necessity  be  figura- 
tive. The  Bible  statement  is  positive  and 
true  :  "  In  the  beginning  God  created  the 
heaven  and  the  earth."  That  is  literal.  The 
institution  of  the  Sabbath  is  also  a  literal 
and   positive   fact.     Man  is  required   to  so- 


Solids    and   Fluids,  08 

observe  time  and  labor  that  every  seventh 
-day  shall  be  Sabbath  time.  The  Bible  says 
nothing  about  the  time  taken  for  the  crea- 
tion except  in  connection  with  the  Sabbath 
day  and  to  show  that  God  made  that  distinc- 
tion in  the  use  of  the  days,  and  made  it 
honorable  for  man  to  observe  it  in  all  time 
by  his  own  example,  which  was  of  necessity 
a  figurative  illustration.  In  no  other  way  is 
the  work  of  creation  referred  to  as  a  labor 
finished,  but  to  emphasize  the  rest  time  that 
God  has  made  and  keeps  in  reserve  for  His 
people.  (Heb.  4  :  4-9.)  "  For  He  spake  in  a 
certain  place  of  the  seventh  day  on  this  wise* 
And  God  did  rest  the  seventh  day  from  all 
His  work."  "There  remains  therefore  a  rest 
to  the  people  of  God."  We  conclude  there- 
fore that  all  the  truths  intended  to  be  taught 
from  the  first  chapter  of  the  Bible  are  plain 
so  far  as  Theology  and  Religion  are  con- 
cerned. That  the  word  "day"  for  man's 
use  is  literal,  but  not  limited  to  a  literal 
sense  as  applied  to  the  Creator's  acts  in 
making  the  heaven  and  the  earth  :  "In  the 
day  that  the  Lord  God  created  them." 


64  Solids    and   Fluids. 

If  we  consider  that  it  is  the  world  itself^ 
and  mainly  the  solid  part  of  it,  that  makes 
the  days,  the  first  day  and  all  that  have 
followed  it,  it  will  be  obvious  that  days  are 
used  in  a  figurative  sense  when  applied  to 
anything  that  was  previously  made  or  done. 
The  world  makes  days  by  its  revolution 
on  its  axis  successively  every  twenty-four 
hours,  or  it  makes  twenty-four  hours  in  one 
day.  But  it  did  not  make  either  days  or 
hours  before  it  had  an  existence  or  itself 
was  made  in  the  sense  of  being  and  moving 
in  conformity  to  gravitation,  momentum 
and  other  laws.  It  is  inconceivable  to  us 
how  time  was  measured  before  there  was- 
any  revolving  world  to  measure  it.  All 
our  time  measures  are  known  by  the 
world's  daily  revolution  on  its  axis,  and  we 
cannot  say  that  the  world  revolved  before  it 
was  made.  Another  step  in  our  existence 
may  take  us  another  step  in  knowledge,  but 
these  are  our  limitations  now  as  to  the  time 
of  creation. 

The  Bible  does  not  speak  of  day   until    it 


SoUch    and    Fluich.  65 

was  visibly  made  by  the  revolution  of  the 
earth  upon  its  axis:  "  God  divided  the  light 
from  the  darkness,"  (for  the  first  day  and 
for  all  the  days  ever  to  be  made  by  the  revo- 
lution of  the  earth  on  its  axis  )  "  And  God 
called  the  light  day  and  the  darkness  He 
called  night.  And  the  evening  and  the 
morning  were  the  first  day."  Gen.  i  :  4,  5. 
It  is  often  said  that  the  Bible  was  not 
given  to  teach  science.  But  there  is  a  science 
of  Theology  and  Religion,  and  this  the  Bible 
teaches.  Science  is  simply  knowledge 
obtained  by  observations  and  experiments 
which  may  be  repeated  by  others  who  are 
qualified  to  repeat  the  experiments  and  to 
make  correctly  the  observations.  All  truths 
so  obtained  in  regard  to  any  subject  consti- 
tute the  science  of  that  subject,  as  the 
science  of  Astronomy  is  what  is  known  of 
astronomy  by  agreeing  observations  of 
many,  and  is  correctly  taught  to  others  as 
the  science  of  astronomy.  The  Bible  teaches 
Theology  and  Religion,  and  it  teaches  that 
subject  in    a    strictly    scientific    way.       It 


66  SoUds    and    Fluids. 

points  to  facts  to  be  considered  by  the 
observations  of  competent  men.  It  asserts  the 
principles  and  characteristics  of  moral  and 
spiritual  character,  and  it  points  to  ex- 
periments and  works  done  to  prove  the 
truth  of  all  its  doctrines.  Experiments  un- 
derlie all  its  requirements.  There  is  a  con- 
stant call  for  men  to  exercise  themselves  in 
experimental  proofs  of  all  the  doctrines  the 
Bible  sets  before  them  as  the  pillars  of 
truth.  Its  first  words  teach  the  true  doc- 
trine of  one  God  only,  by  pointing  to  the 
creation  of  the  world  and  all  things  that  are 
in  it,  and  can  be  seen  from  it,  so  that  noth- 
ing exists  upon  which  any  claims  of  another 
god  can  be  placed.  The  great  truth  that  one 
being  made  it  all  and  all  created  things 
known  to  men  settles  the  question  by  the 
exclusion  of  all  other  gods,  and  this  is  a 
scientific  method,  bringing  before  us  a 
world  which  we  are  to  examine  for  ourselves, 
simply  noting  that  in  its  first  appearance  it 
was  not  more  than  thin  nebula,  "  without 
form    and    void;"  then    the  stages  through 


Solids    and    Fluids.  67 

which  it  passed  ia  preparation  for  the  use  of 
man,  a  work  of  intelligent  design,  variety 
and  magnitude.  This  one  truth  of  creation 
by  one  present  Creator,  the  material  world, 
as  an  example  of  His  work,  brought  under 
our  own  observation  as  we  now  see  it,  to- 
gether with  the  views  of  what  it  has  been  in 
some  other  stages  of  its  career,  entitles  the 
Bible  to  be  a  true  text-book  of  the  Theology 
and  Religion  to  be  taught  to  men.  One 
God  is  the  first  doctrine  of  true  theology, 
and  the  Bible  teaches  this  doctrine  without 
prejudice  to  the  mode  of  His  own  being,  or 
to  the  methods  of  His  foreordained  plan  of 
human  redemption  by  Christ,  the  Son  of 
God  and  of  man. 

Another  true  doctrine  is  the  Divine  ordi- 
nation of  the  Sabbath  day,  coming  in  at  the 
close  of  the  six  days  of  labor  and  commend- 
ed by  His  own  example  as  a  rest  day  and  a 
holy  day,  founded  on  the  experimental 
testing  of  God  for  its  right.  Certainly 
such  a  method  of  teaching  by  example, 
founded  on  experimental  proof  before  giving 


68  Solids   and    Fluids. 

to  meu  the  precept,  is  truly  scientific.  If 
we  take  up  any  other  doctrine  of  the  Bible, 
we  find  that  it  presents  to  us,  in  the  same 
reasonable  way,  proper  grounds  for  our  in- 
vestigation before  acceptance.  No  book  in 
the  world  calls  us  to  closer  observations, 
more  careful  experiments,  or  clearer  illu- 
strations. **  By  their  fruits  ye  shall  know 
them."  "  Whatsoever  a  man  soweth,  that 
shall  he  reap."  "If  any  man  will  do  His 
will  he  shall  know  of  the  doctrine  whether 
it  be  of  God,  or  whether  I  speak  of  myself." 
Nothing  is  more  scientific  than  such  experi- 
mental methods — practical  tests  of  truth  as 
these — the  Divine  works  as  an  open  book 
always  before  us,  with  its  testimonies  for  our 
examination.  And  "  Scripture  given  by  in- 
spiration of  God,  is  open  for  our  inspection 
and  information,  as  well  as  for  reproof,  for 
correction,  for  instruction  in  righteousness, 
that  the  man  of  God  may  be  perfect, 
thoroughly  furnished  unto  all  good  works." 
2  Tim.  3  :  i6,  17.  It  is  thus  made  plain  that 
the  purpose  of  revelation  is  to  help  us  in 


Solids   and    Fluids.  (39 

our  observations  aud  experiments,  so  that 
all  who  strive  to  find  the  truth  may 
find  it.  In  nature  we  find  no  power 
visible  in  itself,  or  life  visible  in  itself. 
When  power,  force  or  life  are  manifested  in 
matter  they  can  be  differentiated  from  it, 
from,  all  visible  things.  Hence  the  out- 
going of  our  faith  to  the  infinite  Omni- 
present God  is  not  unreasonable  nor  un- 
scientific. Invisibility  is  a  necessity  of  Omni- 
presence ;  hence  the  man  of  God  in  all  ages, 
speaking  to  his  Father  in  heaven,  as  a  pres- 
ent person,  can  say  with  reverence  and  a 
holy  unction: 

"  Whither  shall  I  go  from  Thy  spirit  ? 
Or  whither  shall  I  flee  from  Thy  presence  ? 
If  I  ascend  up  into  heaven,  Thou  art  there. 
If  I  make  my  bed  in  hell,  behold  Thou  art 
there.  If  I  take  the  wings  of  the  morning 
and  dwell  in  the  uttermost  part  of  the  sea, 
-even  there  shall  Thy  hand  lead  me,  and  Thy 
right  hand  shall  hold  me.  If  I  say  surely 
the  darkness  shall  cover  me,  even  the  night 
shall  be  light  about  me.     Yea,  the  darkness 


70  Solids    and   Fluids. 

hideth  not  from  Thee,  but  the  night  shiuetb 
as  the  day,  the  darkness  and  the  light  are 
both  alike  to  Thee."     (Ps.  139  :  7-12  ) 


"And  God  said,  Let  the  earth  bring- 
forth  grass,  the  herb  yielding  seed,  and 
the  fruit  tree  yielding  fruit  after  his 
kind,  whose  seed  is  in  itself,  upon  the 


earth ;  and  it  was  so." 


—Genesis,  1:]1. 


LIFE  AND  COUNTER  LIFE. 

CHAPTER   III. 

We  have  considered  matter  in  its  opposite 
states,  seen  and  unseen,  solids  and  fluids. 
We  believe  the  unseen  was  the  condition  of 
all  the  materials  of  the  world  and  of  the 
universe  :  "  In  the  beginning  when  God 
created  the  heaven  and  the  earth."  Out  of 
that  condition  the  atoms  required  for  solids 
were  taken  by  a  force  that  produced  a  gas- 
eous conflagration,  and,  of  consequence,  an 
overspreading  cloud  of  smoke  in  all  direc- 
tions around  the  formative  globe-mass  of  co- 
hering matter.  This  darkness  manifested 
the  law  of  cohesion,  and  eventually  there 
came  into  view  the  solid  globe  now  under 
our  feet.  The  aggregate  of  solids,  as 
weighed  in  the  world  balances  at  that  stage 
of  creation,  were,  we  presume,  the  same  as 
now. 


74  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

From  that  time  the  material  world  ha& 
consisted  of  these  two  parts  in  exactly  op- 
posite conditions  of  matter,  the  unseen  in- 
cluding all  the  fluids  wherever  they  are,  and 
the  seen  including  all  the  solids  wherever 
they  are.  We  might  pause  here  to  look  at 
the  new  made  solids,  wonderful  in  magni- 
tude and  in  workmanship,  endless  in  vari- 
ety— the  great  floods  of  water,  the  high 
mountains  and  deep  valleys,  the  rocks,, 
metals,  earths  and  formative  solutions  of 
mineral  atoms  in  process  of  crystallization, 
crystals  and  gems— but  our  plan  requires  us 
to  notice,  in  a  general  way,  a  phenomenon 
that  occurred  in  time  long  before  many  of 
the  minerals  had  their  places  and  finish  as 
we  now  see  them.  There  was  another  out- 
come from  the  invisible  part  of  the  world 
before  the  manufacture  of  the  most  pictur- 
esque minerals  was  concluded.  A  new  kind 
of  force  comes  out  of  the  unseen  world  be- 
fore us  and  makes  itself  known  here  in 
varied  and  wonderful  kinds  of  conduct. 
This  new  comer  is  called   life.     It  emerged 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  75 

from  the  unseeu  world  iu  the  quietest  pos- 
sible manner.  In  its  own  nature  an  invisible 
force,  it  greatly  surpasses  all  we  had  before 
seen  or  known  in  matter  by  its  own  peculiar 
way  of  using  it.  It  makes  atoms  of  matter 
visible  to  us  in  forms  and  ways  not  revealed 
in  cohesion,  or  in  any  before  known  laws  of 
matter — a  new  phenomenon,  and  we  pause 
for  a  while  to  think  of  it.  It  shows  itself 
in  numberless  and  multiplying  individual- 
ities, shaping  for  itself,  in  matter,  the 
greatest  variety  of  forms,  sizes,  habitats  and 
combinations  of  parts  and  members,  all 
made  of  the  two  conditions  of  matter  we 
bave  been  considering  as  seen  and  unseen 
— solids  and  fluids. 

Science  says  that  all  matter  is  either  or- 
ganized or  unorganized.  Only  life  can  organ- 
ize matter.  Until  life  came  there  was  no 
organized  matter  in  the  world,  and  there  is 
none  now  but  that  which  the  individual 
lives  here  have  organized  for  themselves. 
It  follows  that  the  organized  matter  is  sim- 
ply the  living  bodies  of  all  the  distinct  liv- 


76  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

ing  things  there  are  in  the  world  at  any 
one  time,  including  the  full  number  of 
vegetables  and  animals. 

This  new  phenomenon  of  living  workers 
over  all  the  world  organizing  matter  into 
material  plants  and  animals  comes  to  our 
view  from  the  unseen,  as  all  the  solids  came, 
and  it  shows  to  us  another  unfolded  space 
in  the  plan  of  God  in  the  creation  of  the 
world — another  evolution.  We  see  life  as  a 
predetermined,  foreordained  organizer  of  so 
much  of  the  world's  materials  in  fluids  and 
solids  as  to  lift  them  above  the  low  level  of 
inert  matter.  At  this  stage  of  world  read- 
ing we  see  it  as  a  habitation  for  an  endless 
variety  of  lives  of  both  animal  and  vegetable, 
and  we  pause  to  look  at  the  situation  given 
it  to  manifest  itself  in  visible  organisms, 
the  place  made  ready  for  it,  life's  dwelling 
place  in  respect  to  the  seen  and  unseen 
things,  while  it  exercises  itself  in  material 
bodies.     It  may  be  said  to  reside  here. 

Broadly  speaking  :  Just  between  these 
two  parts  of  the  world,  the  solids  and  fluids; 


L^fe   and    Counter    Life.  77 

at  the  top  of  the  solid  globe,  just  on  the 
shell  of  the  world's  core  and  at  the  bottom 
of  its  great  ocean  of  fluid  atmosphere 
that  rises  into  heaven  ;  in  this  space  in 
every  direction  all  over  the  world  ;  at  the 
top  of  this  comparatively  small  globe  of 
solids,  with  its  crust  but  partially  concealing 
many  fiery  billows  below,  as  shown  by 
structure,  earthquakes  and  volcanoes,  hot 
springs  and  geysers,  with  other  evidences  of 
enveloped  heat  ;  at  the  bottom  of  an  at- 
mosphere opening  up  above  us  for  unknown 
miles  through  the  blue  sky  into  the  infinite 
space  beyond  the  stars  in  heaven  ;  in  this 
lowly  place,  as  it  were,  the  footstool  of 
heaven  ;  at  the  bottom  of  all  that  is  free  in 
space  in  all  directions,  we  see  the  place  de- 
signed for  the  homes  and  the  labors,  the 
food  and  the  enjoyments  of  all  the  living  of 
every  kind,  with  the  camps  and  battlefields, 
the  graves  and  monuments  of  all  the  dead  of 
every  kind.  Here  are  all  the  throbbing 
pulses  out  of  the  living  hearts  of  men  with 
anxious  desires,  hopes  and  fears,  wrestling 


TS  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

for  changes,  for  higher  stations,  for  better 
conditions  of  life.  On  this  one  stage  of 
solids  are  the  endless  variety  of  persons  and 
characters  coming  into  view  as  persons  and 
dropping  out  of  view  as  persons,  but  sus- 
tained in  numbers  and  variety — a  moving 
panorama  throughout  all  generations.  True, 
some  lives,  just  a  few,  are  organized  to  soar 
upward  at  will  high  in  the  air,  on  wings,  for 
a  little  while,  and  some  to  plunge  at  will 
■deep  below  the  billows  of  the  sea  on  mere 
occasions,  but  none  can  stay  long  or  very 
far  from  this  common  breathing  place  for 
all  the  living  and  resting  place  for  all  the 
dead — the  place  of  contact  between  the  seen 
and  the  unseen,  the  solids  and  the  fluids  of 
the  mere  dead  matter  of  creation  as  we 
know  it  by  our  senses. 

But  more  than  this  :  Physical  life  is 
never  manifested,  never  organizes  itself  by 
use  of  atoms  in  either  of  these  two  states  of 
matter  alone.  The  two  are  always  joined 
together  in  a  wonderful  manner  before  there 
is  any  phenomenon    of  life    in    any   matter 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  79 

whatever.  The  bodies  of  all  life  forms  are 
solid,  and  the  work  of  life  iu  all  its  motions, 
whatever  it  does,  is  carried  on  in  the  use  of 
fluid  atoms.  Every  living  thing  keeps  its 
own  body  alive  only  by  its  contributions  to 
itself  of  fluid  atoms,  largely  obtained  at 
times  by  the  conversion  of  solids  into  fluid 
atoms  by  digestion  in  its  body,  and  when 
this  process  of  fluid  action  ceases,  for  any 
reason  whatever,  physical  life  ceases  in  the 
organism  with  which  it  was  identified. 
Hence  we  see  the  two  states  of  matter  are 
essential  to  life  itself  and  are  represented  iu 
all  the  tiniest  as  well  as  the  largest  of  this 
world's  living  forms,  in  both  the  vegetable 
and  animal  kingdoms. 

The  foods  of  every  kind  of  organism'must 
include  both  kinds  of  matter.  Every  living 
organism  must  have  some  food  in  such  form 
that  it  can  work  ^upon  it  and  accomplish 
such  conversion  of  it  into  fluid  as  its  own 
needs  require  ;  something  solid,  including 
liquids  and  solids,  from  which  to  extract  its 
needed  fluids.      Also,  the  ejections,  wastes 


80  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

and  exhalations  of  every  life  organism  will 
be  found  to  include  matter  in  both  the  solid 
and  fluid  state.  The  odors  of  plants  are  fluids 
and  their  shed  leaves  are  solids  ;  their  roots 
draw  fluid  food  from  the  surrounding  soil, 
and  their  leaves  take  in  fluids  from  the  sur- 
rounding atmosphere.  So  every  tree  takes 
food  from  above  as  well  as  from  below,  and 
cannot  dispense  with  either  source  of  its 
supplies.  Such  is  the  relationship  of  every 
living  thing  to  matter  in  its  two  states — 
fluids  and  solids,  seen  and  unseen. 

We  notice  the  order  of  the  outcoming 
things  from  the  unseen  part  of  the  world. 
Solids  were  the  first  thing  we  saw  coming 
out  from  thence.  They  came  out  of  the 
store-house  of  invisible  things,  which  store- 
house our  Father  in  heaven  has  not  yet 
opened  visibly  to  the  eyes  of  men  ;  and  now 
comes  life,  the  second  thing  that  has  come 
forth  from  the  same  store-house  of  unseen 
things  which  are  kept  somewhere  in  our 
Heavenly  Father's  universal  kingdom  under 
his  control  and  not  yet  made  visible  to  men. 


Jjlfe  and    Counter    Life.  81 

We  caunot  think  of  life  as  coming  from  the 
solids  ;  it  was  not  given  with  solids,  did  not 
come  when  they  came.  Its  hiding  place  is 
in  the  fluids,  and  there  is  not  a  physical  life 
in  the  world  that  can  give  up  its  fluids  and 
not  its  place  in  matter  at  the  same  time. 
Life  comes  and  goes  in  fluid  matter,  distinct 
as  it  is  from  it,  for  it  has  no  material  prop- 
erties. It  brings  nothing  to  the  scales  as  a 
counterpoise  to  the  small  dust  of  the  bal- 
ance. We  do  not  imagine  that  a  live  ele- 
phant placed  upon  the  scales  and  weighed 
should  he  be  then  and  there  electrocuted,  or 
yield  his  life  to  an  electric  shock,  would 
weigh  either  less  or  more  because  of  that 
event.  Ponderability  is  not  a  property  of 
life,  neither  has  life  any  part  in  the  essential 
properties  of  matter  as  we  know  it. 

The  true  science  of  life  comes  only  from 
the  works  of  life  itself.  We  must  see  what 
it  does  and  define  it  by  its  works  ;  after  that 
determine  what  its  laws  are,  when  we  know 
sufiSciently  of  its  works  to  do  so.  This  is  all 
that  science,  simply  as  science,  knows  about 


82  -^{/e    and    Counter    Life. 

life  ;  it  knows  it  by  its  works.  We  need  not 
try  to  break  the  mystery  of  its  being.  We 
know  it  as  a  part  of  the  wonderful  works  of 
God.  We  may  classify  it  and  study  it  boldly 
and  carefully,  but  as  there  is  always  in  it  a 
kind  of  Godward  mystery  we  should  study 
it  reverently,  with  open  minds  and  truth- 
loving  hearts. 

Probably  the  word  life  has  a  greater  range 
of  meanings  than  any  other  word.  It  be- 
longs individually  to  every  organized  form 
in  the  whole  universe.  The  vivified  speck 
of  organized  matter  that,  with  flickering 
heart-beats,  begins  the  battle  of  existence  on 
wings  and  expires  in  the  contest  of  one  day, 
as  the  ephemera  or  May  flies  are  said  to  do, 
is  individualized  life,  and  it  ranges  up 
through  the  whole  scale  of  individual  ex- 
istence. Life  is  thus  used  with  a  universal- 
ity not  given  to  many,  if  to  any  other,  words. 
There  is  nothing  else  more  multitudinous 
than  life  organisms  in  the  world. 

Because  electricity  is  universally  present 
and  imponderable,   and  it  is  always  found 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  83 

abundantly  in  all  organized  beings,  some 
have  said  that  may  be  life.  But  if  electricity 
-were  life  it  is  very  singular  that  an  abund- 
ance of  it  is  so  fatal  everywhere  to  all  life, 
vegetable  and  animal.  No,  electricity  is  not 
life  auy  more  than  heat  or  light  or  magne- 
tism is  life.  Life  did  not  come  into  solids  as 
electricity  came,  and  it  did  not  come  until 
after  electricity  came.  Electricity  came 
with  the  first  manifestation  of  solids,  but 
life  came  in  a  characteristic  manner  that  be- 
longs to  itself  alone.  It  came  without  visi- 
ble form,  to  build  visible  forms.  It  came 
without  visible  faculties  to  organize  for  itself 
visible  faculties.  It  came  with  no  visible 
will  power  and  it  crowned  many  things  it 
organized  with  faculties  for  adequately  show, 
ing  the  character  of  a  free  will.  It  came 
with  no  visible  eyes  to  see  its  own  work,  but 
it  included  organs  of  sight  in  most  of  its  ani- 
mal productions.  It  came  with  no  visible  re- 
lations to  material  things  and  it  has  filled  the 
world  with  visible  forms  that  are  related  to 
one  another  and  yet  diversified  in  powers, 


84  Life   and    Counter    Life. 

characters  and  works  and  moral  attributes 
revealed  as  subsisting  with,  and  yet  distinct 
from,  the  materials  in  which  they  reside.  No 
building  ever  made  a  builder.  No  statuary 
ever  made  an  artist.  Life  came  as  the  world 
came,  by  the  word  of  God.  "  God  said." 
And  that  is  the  reason  solids  came  wuth  elec- 
tricity, and  then  life,  not  as  the  law  of  elec- 
tricity or  any  other  law  of  matter.  Life  is 
an  individualizing  power  and  has  character- 
istics that  do  not  belong  to  any  law  of  mat- 
ter. It  has  use  for  and  ability  to  use  matter^ 
as  no  laws  of  matter  can  do  without  it.  Life 
individualizes  itself  in  fairly  reasonable  pro- 
portions in  two  opposite  sexes,  the  male  and 
the  female.  And  the  increase  of  numbers  of 
individuals  in  all  kinds  of  life,  vegetable  and 
animal,  is  dependent  on  a  parentage  that  in- 
cludes both  sexes.  The  foundations  of  reli- 
gious marriage  were  started  prospectively  in 
this  world  with  the  introduction  of  life. 
And  the  higher  the  life  the  more  sacred  and 
divine  is  that  relationship  of  which  Christ 
and  His  Church   is  the  antitype.     Eph.  5: 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  85- 

xxxii  :     "This    is    a    great  mystery,   but  I 
speak  concerning  Christ  and  the  Church." 

Again  we  notice  that  embodied  life  in  both 
kingdoms  and  of  all  kinds,  begins  its  mani- 
festation to  us,  its  very  first  work,  in  start- 
ing for  itself  a  body,  beginning  always  with 
the  making  of  a  seed  in  the  body  of  its  own 
natural  parent  from  which  it  is  to  descend. 
This  special  fact  belongs  in  principle  to  all 
animated  nature  without  exception,  life  from 
life.  There  has  never  been  known  in  his- 
toric times  any  life  without  parentage,  nat. 
ural  descent  or  the  body  or  seed  of  any  life 
not  commenced  in  a  living  relation  to  a  par- 
ent of  which  it  has  a  natural  time  limit  of 
separation.  Only  life  can  generate  life,  and 
of  all  the  kinds  of  life  in  the  world  no  one 
can  generate  either  a  higher  or  lower  kind 
than  is  natural  to  itself.  Sparrows  cannot 
generate  eagles,  nor  eagles  sparrows  ;  apples 
grapes,  nor  grapes  apples.  Though  the  seeds 
of  a  tree,  vast  in  numbers,  to  be  counted  by 
thousands,  it  is  still  true  that  every  one  of 
them  is  a  separate  young  life  commenced  in 


86  L^f^    and    Counter    Life. 

the  tree  and  shows  the  first  steps  taken  in 
embryo  to  make  another  tree  like  the  one 
from  which  the  seed  came.  And  so  in  all 
animals  multiplying  by  whatever  kind  of 
eggs,  or  spawn,  or  dividings,  and  whatever 
their  number  from  the  same  parent.  The 
spawn  eggs  of  some  kinds  of  fish  may  be 
■counted  to  a  million,  it  is  said,  yet  every  one 
of  them  contains  the  embryo  of  another  ani- 
mal in  the  likeness  of  its  parent  fish,  as  seeds 
•do  of  new  trees  in  the  likeness  of  their  par- 
ent tree.  We  notice,  also,  that  the  seeds  of 
every  tree  and  the  eggs  of  all  animals  that 
are  parted  from  their  parent  before  an  inde- 
pendent life  is  manifested  have  in  a  safe  cas- 
ing or  shell  a  little  food  for  the  young  tree 
or  the  young  animal  to  start  with  and  to  live 
upon  for  a  little  time  whenever  the  little  life 
germ  shall  be  placed  in  circumstances  to 
start  independently,  or  on  its  own  account. 
As  an  example  we  are  all  familiar  with  the 
food  in  a  common  hen's  egg  that  lasts  three 
weeks  under  the  vivifying  influences  of  incu- 
bation, in  which  time  the  embryo  grows  by 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  87 

feeding  on  the  repast  of  egg  food  stored  up- 
for  it  for  that  occasion,  as  long  as  it  lasts. 
Then  the  chick's  growth  and  strength  is  such 
that  with  its  little  bill  it  breaks  a  hole  in  the 
shell  which  held  his  food  for  three  weeks 
and  was  his  own  little  world  when  he  began 
life  and  was  called  au  egg  ;  then  master 
chick  comes  out  to  see  the  outside  world  and 
to  gather  food  wherever  he  can  find  it,  in  a 
place  where  he  can  use  his  numerous  facul- 
ties, eyes,  ears,  bill,  legs,  claws  and  wings, 
brains  and  intellectual  faculties.  If  we  turn 
now  to  the  tiniest  seed  of  grass,  when  it 
leaves  the  place  of  its  paternity,  it  has  a 
small  well  packed  case  of  food  in  its  tin}^ 
almost  microscopic  casing,  for  its  first  use 
whenever  it  shall  be  placed  in  circumstances 
for  gomg  on  with  its  enterprise  of  making 
another  blade  of  grass  like  that  from  which 
it  came,  including  the  production  of  seeds 
and  casting  them  forth  with  life  properties 
and  food  in  them  like  that  with  which  it 
started  its  own  career.  Thus  in  endless  mul-- 
tiplications  and  successions  all  the  orders  of 


88  -^(/e    and    Counter    Life. 

life  are  going  on  to  accomplish  their  work- 
We  see  their  bodies,  their  growth  and  their 
work  while  they  live.  They  die,  and  their 
bodies  cease  to  be  organized  matter,  they 
cannot  be  used  as  bodies  for  any  other  lives, 
even  if  used  as  shelter  or  food  for  them,  for 
in  this  respect  parasites  must  make  their 
own  bodies.  That  is  a  work  the  doing  of 
which  cannot  be  shirked  or  delegated  to  an- 
other, either  bond  or  free,  high  or  low, 
great  or  small,  each  life  must  grow  its  own 
body. 

Notice  also  that  life  always  extends  itself 
by  individuals  and  in  no  other  way.  Mol- 
lusca  may  increase  as  the  sands  of  the  sea, 
and  insects  swarm  as  clouds,  and  fish  may 
shoal  in  masses  and  grass  may  sward  the 
lawn  ;  still  a  careful  analysis  will  show  that 
all  these  aggregated  numbers  of  each  kind  are 
made  up  of  individuals,  and  that  each  indi- 
vidual has  only  such  a  body  as  it  has  made 
for  itself  and  such  as  form  its  seed  or  root 
multiplication;  it  could  have  made  no  other 
in  substantial  character.     The  egg  is  not  like 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  8D 

the  fish  that  spawned  it,  nor  the  seed  like 
the  tree  that  bore  it  or  the  root  that 
branched  it ;  yet  the  law  of  descent  will 
keep  them  both  within  their  proper  lines  in 
all  their  future  work.  If  we  think  of  the 
unnumbered  classes  of  life  forms  in  the 
waters  and  the  air  and  on  the  land,  the 
preservation  of  classes  is  indeed  most  won- 
derful. But  all  seeds  hold  their  secret  un- 
seen of  men,  they  hold  the  plan  and  char- 
acter of  the  material  body  from  which  they 
came,  but  will  not  reveal  it  until  given  an 
opportunity  similar  to  that  enjoyed  by  the 
parent  tree.  I  may  hold  a  mustard  seed  and 
a  turnip  seed  in  my  hand  and  be  unable  to 
tell  by  sight  the  one  from  the  other,  but 
when  placed  in  fertile  soil,  smiling  sunshine 
and  ample  moisture  they  will  open  their  re- 
spective plans  with  all  the  cautions  of  invis- 
ible growth;  but  eventually,  faithful  to  their 
parentage,  a  true  likeness  of  the  plant  that 
gave  them  respectively  their  being  comes 
forth. 

The  microscope  has  been  called   into   ser- 


DO  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

vice  to  discover  the  secrets  of  life  in  its 
starting,  and  all  the  responses  it  has  ever 
given  are  in  mere  samples  of  life's  very- 
minute  and  early  works.  Students  find  a 
very  small  "  cell  "  which  is  the  first  visible 
work  of  every  life  starting  to  form  itself  a 
body  within  that  of  its  own  parent,  either 
animal  or  vegetable.  The  cell  itself  is  not 
life,  but  the  body  of  a  life  commenced  upon 
the  same  plan  as  its  parents'  life  was  com- 
menced before  it.  The  "cell"  does  not 
^iflfer  much  in  all  the  various  kinds  of  life 
known,  either  animal  or  vegetable,  great  or 
small.  The  earnest  student  with  his  micro- 
scope sees  the  live  cell,  a  very  minute 
structure,  but  the  beginning  of  a  life  has 
already  passed  and  the  microscope  is  con- 
fronted with  just  a  sample  of  life's  work, 
just  a  little  cell  with  fluid  centre  rapidly 
forming  and  connecting  other  matter  by 
cells  and  combinations,  and  growing  apace 
until  the  time  comes  for  a  separate  existence 
from  its  parent,  or  for  some  marked  trans- 
formation.     For  example,    among  winged 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  91 

insects  that  deposit  their  eggs  where  there 
is  food  for  a  worm,  the  life  in  the  egg  first 
deposited  in  the  food  begins  and  organizes 
a  worm  body  that  eats  of  that  food  and 
grows  to  maturity  and  then  passes  into  the 
chrysalis  state  where  the  matter  in  its  worm 
body  is,  some  of  it  rejected  and  some  of  it 
used  as  food  for  the  same  life  to  organize 
and  to  mature  a  body  of  the  insect  kind 
which  being  completed  with  wings,  the  in- 
sect, it  may  be  a  butterfly,  comes  out  in  the 
real  likeness  of  its  own  true  parents,  and 
ready  in  due  time  and  in  similar  manner  ta 
deposit  eggs  for  the  starting  of  other  ani- 
mals, but  of  its  own  kind  only.  All  created 
lives  have  their  own  kind  of  transformations 
from  embryo  or  germ  to  final  maturity,  but 
the  metamorphoses  of  insects  are  so  unique 
and  visible  as  to  be  best  known.  We  think 
of  the  butterfly  going  away  with  a  bright 
new  body  and  wings  to  fly  in  the  air  from 
its  decayed  chrysalis,  aud  we  wonder  if  it. 
knows  or  remembers  anything  about  its  for- 
mer mode  of  life  as  a  disgusting  worm.  Does 


"92  Life    and    Counter    Life, 

it  kuow  how  it  once  crawled  as  a  worm  and 
then  slept  as  a  chrysalis  before  it  awoke  in 
the  air  on  wings  with  all  its  attractive  adorn- 
ments of  form  and  color  and  blithe  motions  ? 
These  are  simple  hints  of  the  transforma- 
tions, sleeps,  torpors,  and  encasements 
which  show  that  life  is  capable  of  a  con- 
tinued existence  in  some  organisms  and  in 
some  circumstances  that  indicate  a  very 
limited  degree  of  activity.  It  is  said  that 
life  is  action;  but  when  we  take  two  kernels 
of  wheat  from  an  old-time  harvest  and  plant 
them,  if  one  grows  and  the  other  does  not, 
we  say  only  one  of  those  seeds  was  a  live 
seed.  Still  life,  in  its  own  nature  as  a  sub- 
stantive existence,  is  something  distinct 
from — I  do  not  say  separable  from — all  its 
changes  and  all  its  works,  however  wonder- 
ful they  may  be.  We  see  it  only  while  in 
«ome  of  its  works  and  these  show  it  to  be  a 
self-directing  agent,  bringing  things  seen 
out  of  the  unseen,  manifesting  itself  in 
either  animal  or  vegetable  forms  and  always 
after  the  type  of  its  own  kind  ;  never  visible 


Lift    and    Counter    Life.  93 

uutil  it  makes  itself  so  by  its  own  growth  in 
its  own  natural  organisms.  All  seeds  have 
the  stamp  of  their  progenitors,  so  that  every 
kind  of  life  started  in  the  world  has  a  con- 
tinuous likeness  to  its  original  by  natural 
parentage,  however  much  it  may  be  in- 
creased in  numbers  ;  and  though  it  does  be- 
come modified  in  time  by  its  historical  con- 
ditions, climate,  food,  works  and  surround- 
ings yet  the  tendency  of  all  lives  under  like 
conditions  is  towards  the  likeness  of  the 
original  from  which  they  came  ;  organisms 
like  organisms,  and  character  like  character. 
Natural  parentage  is  more  potent  than 
"  natural  selection." 

Again  there  are  many  time  periods  of  life 
which  distinguish  it  from  the  laws  of  matter. 
Some  lives  manifest  their  presence  in  matter 
for  one  day — ephemera — and  some  for  3,000 
years,  (the  cedars  of  Lebanon,)  and  this  is  a 
characteristic  circumstance  of  life.  Even 
disease  germs,  microbes,  are  estimated  to 
have  their  respective  periods  of  incubation, 
upon  the  same  principle  of  larger  organisms. 


94  -^i/e    and    Counter    Life. 

Notice  also  that  the  laws  of  matter,  cohe- 
sion, gravitation,  electricity,  heat,  magnet- 
ism, chemical  affinity,  etc.,  all  continue  their 
force  in  organized  matter  the  same  as  in 
unorganized  ;  and  yet  withal  we  see  that 
there  is  no  life  in  the  world  so  humble  and 
lowly.  There  is  nothing  known  as  a  life 
that  does  not  do  works  with  the  laws  of 
matter,  that  these  laws  or  forces  cannot  do 
without  the  life  force.  For  example,  an 
apple  tree  will  cause  to  appear  upon  twigs 
from  its  branches  500  pounds  of  apples  in 
five  months,  from  May  to  October.  With 
the  law  of  gravitation  for  the  whole  time  in 
persistent  opposition  to  there  being  a  single 
ounce  of  apples  up  there.  We  see  the 
apples  as  solids,  every  atom  in  them  is  now 
obedient  to  the  law  of  cohesion,  and  in  some 
way  has  been  taken  by  life  from  the  law  of 
repulsion  and  diffusion  and  prepared  by 
growth  to  be  presented  visibly  in  fruit  as  we 
now  see  them.  These  are  works  of  life  so 
common  that  we  scarcely  stop  to  think  of 
them;  but  they  are  enough  to  show  that  life- 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  95 

works,  as  works,  are  easily  distinguishable 
from  any  and  all  the  laws  and  works  of 
physical  forces.  If  anyone  says  the  laws  of 
capillary  attraction  fed  the  tree  and  the 
fruit,  we  have  only  to  look  at  a  tree  without 
life  and  see  if  it  feeds  apples  or  anything 
else. 

We  are  all  familiar  with  the  process  of 
grafting  trees,  and  we  know  that  whether 
the  whole  tree  is  grafted  or  only  a  part,  the 
graft  grows  in  wood  fiber,  looks  and  fruit 
of  its  own  native  kind. 

The  graft  produces  its  own  proper  kind  of 
fruit,  while  the  roots  and  body  of  the  tree  in 
which  it  is  placed  render  all  needed  service 
in  the  fluid  circulations  required  by  the 
graft.  The  graft  retains  its  own  nature 
and  does  its  own  characteristic  work  in  fruit 
bearing  of  its  own  kind.  By  this  we  see  that 
the  shoots,  twigs  and  leaves  of  trees  control 
their  roots  and  bodies  as  to  what  their  work 
shall  be  in  fruit  bearing,  and  the  body  and 
roots  of  the  tree  become  simply  contribu- 
"tory.     This  is  a  pleasing  result,  when  we  see 


90  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

a  worthless  tree  made  valuable  by  grafting^ 
into  it  a  little  sciou  from  a  good  tree;  and 
in  like  manner  a  worthless  sciou  may  be 
grafted  into  a  good  tree  ;  and  grafting  may 
accomplish  conversion  and  re-conversion^ 
but  no  third  kind  or  new  kind  of  fruit  can 
be  obtained  by  grafting,  but  rather  one  of 
the  strongest  evidences  of  the  tendency  of 
all  life  to  be  faithful  to  its  ancestral  type. 
Life  is  always  dependent  upon  the  co-opera- 
tion of  all  the  laws  of  matter,  notwithstand- 
ing its  own  higher  character  and  power. 
Whenever  any  matter  suited  to  any  particu- 
lar life  ceases  agreeably  to  its  own  laws  to 
serve  reasonably  w^ell,  life  after  a  brief 
struggle  gives  up  the  contest,  leaves  its  own 
organism  and  passes  to  some  other  state, 
condition  or  place.  To  our  limited  knowl- 
edge it  disappears.  Likewise  its  organism, 
its  body,  passes  in  due  time  to  some  other 
condition  of  matter.  We  can  follow  the  de- 
composition of  the  organism,  every  atom  of 
it,  back  to  its  former  state  of  fluid  and  solid 
elements  of  matter.     Obedient  still   to   alL 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  ^7 

those  laws,  but  free  now  from  the  law  of 
life.  Probably  if  we  could  follow  it  we 
should  find  in  like  manner  the  reversion  of 
vegetable  life  to  its  former  normal  condition 
in  space,  or  that  the  life  of  the  dying  reverts 
again  to  a  condition  in  space  similar  to  what 
it  had  with  its  kind  before  it  1  ecame  con- 
stituted in  matter  by  its  own  organization 
therein.  Whenever  matter  is  in  a  perfectly 
prepared  condition  to  receive  life  there 
is  always  a  kind  of  universal  presence  of  it 
to  start  organisms,  and  we  can  see  no  reason 
why  it  should  not  come  forth  again  and  again 
in  such  kind  of  organisms  as  by  the  laws 
of  its  creation  God  has  predetermined  it. 
There  is  no  spontaneous  generation, 
but  in  the  due  order  of  nature  there 
is  always  some  kind  of  life  present 
to  all  matter  in  a  fit  condition  to  receive  it. 
A  plant  in  dying  retires  from  its  own  body 
and  leaves  it  to  the  laboratory  of  nature  to 
be  chemically  and  mechanically  prepared 
for  reorganization,  and  this  is  constantly' 
going  on  under  our  own    observation.     The 


98  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

bones  aud  shells  of  many  animals  may  con- 
tinue in  some  places  undissolved  ;  but  not 
in  places  where  the  air,  heat,  water  and  life 
are  constantly  acting  upon  them.  This 
known  reversion  of  the  elements  of  matter, 
and  the  identical  atoms  of  it,  back  and  forth 
between  the  seen  and  unseen,  or  the  solids 
and  fluids,  shows  that  life  does  not  increase 
or  diminish  the  quantity  of  matter  existing. 
If  life  should  organize  all  the  matter  of 
the  world  it  would  not  add  one  atom  to 
what  is  now  existing.  It  would  sim- 
ply change  its  form  aud  modify  or  re- 
refine  its  character.  Neither  does  it  seem 
likely  that  the  lower  grades  of  life,  as 
plant  life,  for  example,  has  not  the  same 
facility  of  reversion  back  and  forth  between 
matter  in  which  it  becomes  organized  and  a 
place  and  state  of  existence  in  which  it  is  not 
organized,  as  its  own  organism  has  of  rever- 
sion of  all  its  elements  to  their  former  state 
after  life's  departure  from  them.  The  ques- 
tion is  whether  life  is  not  furnished  to  plant 
organisms  in  some  way  analogous  to  that  in 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  99 

which  matter  is  furnished  from  its  unseen 
atoms.  As  life  is  even  more  retired  into  the 
unseen,  when  out  of  its  organisms,  than 
fluid  matter  is  when  out  of  the  same,  whv 
should  not  the  former  have  a  relative  place 
of  existence  in  the  unseen  fluids  of  the  in- 
visible part  of  the  world  as  well  as  the  latter 
in  the  seen  things  of  the  world  and  without 
any  necessity  of  being  a  material  substance  ? 
Why  should  not  life  be  increased  to  the 
plant  as  it  needs  it,  as  well  as  invisible  atoms 
as  it  needs  them  ?  The  plant  increases  by 
atoms  of  matter  taken  from  the  air  every 
day.  Why  not  the  increase  of  its  life  in  a 
similar  manner  ?  I  can  see  no  reason  for 
thinking  that  any  of  the  lower  kinds  of  life, 
either  vegetable  or  animal,  ever  actually 
leave  this  world,  if  we  understand  the  world 
to  include  the  air  space  belonging  to  it. 
I/ife  is  never  manifested  but  where  fluids  are 
in  circulation  in  a  visible  organism,  but  its 
presence  wherever  matter  is  ready  for  organi- 
zation and  a  seed  is  rightly  inserted  seems  to 
be  as  universal  as  the  air  itself. 


100  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

I  am  the  more  explicit  iu  this  matter  be- 
cause I  do  uot  regard  the  highest  order  of 
life  as  included  iu  this  or  iu  auy  like  rever- 
sions or  system  of  renewals.  Man's  circuit 
includes  his  accountability  to  God  in  this 
life  and  that  which  is  to  come.  Heb.  9: 
xxvii  :  "  It  is  appointed  unto  man  once  to 
die,  but  after  that  the  judgment."  Man,  iu 
the  image  of  God,  has  a  continued  identity 
of  person  and  character  ;  for  him  we  find  not 
only  that  "  the  body  returns  to  dust  as  it  was 
and  the  spirit  to  God  who  gave  it,"  but  that 
God  will  bring  every  work  into  judgment, 
whether  it  be  good  or  evil." — Keel.  12:  vii 
and  xiv.  Science  knows  of  no  possible 
way  in  which  annihilation  can  take  place  in 
any  atom  of  matter  whatever.  Changes  of 
relative  quantities  and  varieties  of  combina- 
tions, forms  and  changes  of  place,  are  all 
that  matter  or  atoms  of  matter  are  capable  of 
showing.  And  so  of  life  in  its  lower  orders. 
It  may  have  changes  of  place  and  varied 
conditions  of  existence,  with  endless  variety 
iu  forms  ;  and  this,  with  its  works,  is  all  we 


Lifa    and    Counter    Life.  101 

kuow  of  it.  Its  couception,  and  growth,  and 
form,  and  work,  and  death  we  see,  while  all 
the  rest  of  its  circuit  is  hid  from  us,  though 
not  without  a  clear  hint  of  its  reversion  into 
the  fluid  space  from  which  it  came. 

The  question  as  to  when  life  first  appeared 
in  our  world  is  one  of  consideiable  interest, 
from  a  geological  point  of  view,  because  the 
structure  of  the  earth's  crust  shows  so  much 
work  done  by  life  organisms  in  produc- 
ing the  solids  as  we  now  find  them,  that  to 
fix  the  rlate  of  rocks  and  conglomerate  for- 
mations is  to  fix  a  date  of  life  for  the  organ- 
isms in  those  formations.  Fossil  remains 
are  found  entombed  in  the  rocks ;  petri- 
fied remains  are  found  in  places  eight 
miles  below  the  earth's  surface.  These 
give  us  the  certainty  of  teeming 
millions  of  plants  and  animals  in  each 
successive  step  of  the  world's  career. 
From  the  view  we  have  taken  of  the 
transformation  of  a  part  of  the  world's 
materials  from  a  fluid  into  a  solid 
state  by  compression  and   cohesion,  which 


102  -Zy//e    and    Counter    Life. 

made  the  earth  for  awhile  a  ball  of 
fire  with  an  outwardly  overspread  dark- 
ness of  smoke,  it  is  plain  that  life  could 
not  have  been  manifested  in  the  first  period 
of  the  world's  cooling  down  process.  Time 
enough  must  have  elapsed  for  a  portion  of 
its  vapor  and  smoke  to  have  become  lique- 
fied before  a  habitable  place  was  ready  for 
any  kind  of  life,  as  we  now  see  it.  Ivven  the 
aquatic  plants  and  shell-forming  animals 
required  delay  for  the  earth  to  cool  down  ; 
but  the  moment  that  took  place  we  can  im- 
agine the  word  to  have  gone  forth  and  that 
self-multiplying  organisms,  life  organisms, 
prevailed  to  the  extent  of  the  world's  pre- 
paredness for  their  work.  At  the  first  there 
could  have  been  no  pure  water  and  no  pure 
air,  agreeably  to  our  present  ideas.  Purifi- 
cation required  separations  and  rejections. 
Not  until  the  chemical  processes  of  nature 
had  ceased  to  be  violent  universally,  and 
the  extreme  solids  that  could  stand  the  high- 
est degrees  of  heat  and  the  liquid  solutions- 
that  would  first  condense  were  parting  from- 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  103 

€ach  other,  would  there  be  auy  place  or  any 
sustenance  for  life  ;  no  conditions  of  matter 
in  a  state  of  readiness  to  receive  it  in  the 
places  where  it  now  exists.  Doubtless  our 
Heavenly  Father  saw  the  world  ready  for 
life  before  He  spoke  the  word  that  brought 
it  here,  and  in  just  the  kinds  for  its  first  in- 
troduction .  Some  kinds  could  endure  a 
high  degree  of  heat,  some  could  exist  in 
liquids  but  poorly  aerified,  all  had  a  peculiar 
work  to  do  in  getting  the  world  ready  for 
the  higher  order  of  beings — workers  whose 
bodies  were  to  become  so  large  a  part  of  the 
crust  and  soils  needed  for  future  occupants. 
There  was  no  reason  why  these  should  wait 
after  the  conditions  of  the  temperature  and 
sustenance  admitted  of  their  presence.  The 
wonderful  life  organisms  in  the  shape  of 
mammoth  plants  and  trees,  gigantic  animals, 
megatheriums  and  other  monsters,  as  well  as 
smaller  crustaceans  and  polyps,  an  immense 
throng  of  countless  varieties,  all  along  the 
past  ages  are  now  presented  in  the  crusts  of 
the  earth  and  described  in  our  text  books  ot 


104  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

geology.  We  have  fossil  remaius,  both 
flora  and  fauna,  in  every  strata  of  the  earth's 
crust  since  the  first,  or  certainly  the  second,. 
showing  that  life  had  been  in  the  world  from 
the  earliest  time,  and  of  such  kinds  as  it 
could  support  in  all  its  own  changing  condi- 
tions. The  carbon  and  lime  that  existed  in 
a  gaseous  state  as  fluids  at  first  needed  to  be 
removed  from  the  air,  and  life  was  made  the 
appointed  agency  for  removing  it.  Plants 
and  animals  made  their  own  bodies  mostly 
of  these  materials  ;  there  was  carbon  enough 
for  all  the  plants  and  lime  enough  for  all 
the  shells  and  bones  and  coral  reefs.  The 
lives  that  solidified  all  these  immense  quan- 
tities of  carbon  and  lime  have  left  their 
record  in  the  rocks  and  chalk  formations,, 
in  the  coal  mines  and  coral  reefs,  witness- 
ing of  what  the  humblest  lives  once  did  to 
prepare  the  world  for  the  needs  of  men. 
Aquatic  plants  and  mollusca  and  polyps  ma}- 
have  filled  many  waters  when  but  little  soil 
or  rock  was  dry — perhaps  before  the  firma- 
ment  was   a   visible   reality  and  the  waters 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  105 

"began  to  be  purified  in  the  way  we  now  see 
it,  in  its  circuits  to  the  sky  and  through 
gravel  beds  of  earth  to  fresh  springs  and 
fountains,  a  present  delight  to  the  children 
•of  men,  a  necessity  to  the  present  animal 
kingdom. 

We  have  seen  before  that  all  lives  make 
their  own  bodies  and  begin  the  same  invisi- 
bly in  the  living  bodies  from  which  they  de- 
scend. We  now  observe,  that  all  character- 
istics of  every  kind  become  known  of  what 
kind  they  are  only  as  the  life  and  growth  of 
animals  and  plants  reveal  them.  In  the  very 
lowest  grades  of  vegetables  and  animals  both 
are  respectively  so  near  alike  that  science 
has  not  determined  the  class  of  all  of  them 
whether  animal  or  vegetable.  A  school  of 
polyps  building  a  coral  island  in  a  southern 
sea  may  strongly  resemble  a  flower  garden 
on  the  land.  The  protozoa,  among  which 
we  find  the  sponge,  are  very  closely  allied  to 
some  vegetable  forms,  yet  from  thence  in  the 
upward  scale,  vegetable  and  animal  begin  to 
diverge  and  keep  on  diverging  until  their 


106  Life   and    Counter    Life. 

contrasts  become  as  immeasurable  as  their 
first  characters  were  indistinguishable. 
There  is  no  comparison  between  a  blooming 
buttercup  in  the  meadow  and  an  elephant 
that  tramps  his  foot  upon  it  ;  yet  if  we  trace 
them  back  to  the  germs  and  microscopic 
embryo  of  their  existence  simply  as  germs 
we  find  them  not  much  apart  in  their  vital- 
ized atoms  of  matter.  To  us  they  start  from 
an  invisible  line  of  separation  as  they  take 
their  respective  departures  out  of  the  unseen 
fluid.  The  one,  by  the  way  predetermined 
by  its  vegetable  parentage,  to  become  a  but- 
ter cup  in  the  meadow  and  the  other  by  the 
way  of  an  animal  parentage  to  become  an 
elephant. 

One  of  the  first  things  in  which  vege- 
tables and  animals  are  seen  to  differ  is  in 
food  taking  for  their  own  growth.  Plants 
take  in  their  food  at  innumerable  pores  in 
their  roots  and  leaves  and  they  do  not  show 
us  any  visible  way  in  which  they  reject  or 
eject  any  refuse  matter.  Very  low  animals, 
by  a  kind  of  muscular  vibration, draw  in  their 


L^fc    and    Counter    Life.  107 

food  with  more  or  less  extraneous  matter  at 
one  or  more  mouths  about  their  bodies  in 
various  places,  from  which  also  they  expel 
what  is  rejected  and  either  internally  or  ex- 
ternally construct  solids — bones,  coral  or 
shells.  There  is  not  much  in  a  miscroscopic 
foraminifera  to  show  the  whole  scale  of  the 
animal  kingdom,  neither  is  there  much  in  a 
microscopic  plant  to  show  the  magnitude  of 
the  vegetable  kingdom.  So  little  does  organ- 
ized matter  in  its  first  degree  dififer  from  the 
unorganized  of  similar  kind  that  it  is  diffi- 
cult in  some  instances  to  tell  whether  certain 
matter  is  moved  by  life  or  only  by  electri- 
city, magnetism,  heat  or  some  other  merely 
physical  force.  We  have  seen  before  that 
all  seen  things  are  made  from  unseen,  and 
that  all  lives  make  their  own  bodies  and 
forms  and  faculties  in  the  use  of  invisible 
atoms  of  matter.  We  now  notice  that  the  up- 
ward grade  of  faculties  and  forms  from  one 
kind  of  life  to  another,  in  both  kingdoms,  is 
by  steps  that  are  invisibly  small  when  singly 
examined,  showing  us  again  and  again  that 


108  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

the  seen  is  from  the  unseen.  If  we  take  a 
systematic  botany  and  start  on  the  ascending 
scale  a  tour  through  the  vegetable  kingdom 
we  shall  take  100,000  steps,  more  or  less,  be- 
fore we  arrive  at  the  highest  specimen  of 
vegetable  life.  Or  if  we  choose  to  take  a 
text  book  on  Zoology  and  make  the  tour  of 
the  animal  kingdom  we  shall  have  a  larger 
number  of  steps,  probably  a  million,  if  we  be- 
gin with  microcosms,  before  we  reach  the 
highest  order  of  animals.  But  one  thing  we 
shall  see  long  before  we  arrive  at  the  super- 
lative of  either  of  these  two  kinds  o£  life, 
that  the  vegetable  is  for  the  use  of  the  ani- 
mal kingdom. 

The  lilies  and  all  the  vegetable  adorn- 
ment'^ of  the  world,  the  cedar  and  all  the 
precious  timber-making  trees,  the  vine  and 
all  the  fruit-bearing  trees  of  the  world,  the 
golden  harvests  of  grain  and  all  food  pro- 
ducts of  the  vegetable  are  for  the  use  of  a 
higher,  that  is,  the  animal  kingdom— a  feast 
of  fat  things  and  a  necessity  to  their  exist- 
ence.      Yet-  the   vegetable    kiugdom   loses 


Jj'ife  and    Counter    Life.  109 

notliiug  wheu  it  is  used  by  auimals  for  which 
it  was  made.  A  fair  equivalent  is  made  by 
animals  in  the  cultivation  of  the  soil — worms, 
ants,  rodents  numberless,  and  the  whole 
animal  kingdom  give  back  what  the  vege- 
table needs  more  than  it  does  its  own  fruit. 
There  are  also  resemblances  and  contrasts  of 
character  all  along  the  rising  scale  of  both 
kingdoms.  Good  and  evil  are  always  near 
each  other  and  in  contradiction  in  all  the 
places  in  the  world  wherever  we  take  our 
observations. 

Another  fact  of  life  is  its  labor  necessity 
and  its  wants.  There  is  no  physical  life 
known  to  us  that  was  ever  intended  to  live 
without  labor  and  food.  Life  comes  into 
the  world  with  abounding  wants,  and  the 
higher  the  life  the  higher  the  wants.  The 
tiniest  foraminifer,  with  its  microscopic 
shell,  has  its  wants  ;  wants  supplied,  by 
which  it  has  alreadj^  made  its  own  little 
house  thus  far,  and  wants  continuing,  by 
which  it  will  enlarge  its  house  a  little  aud 
then  multiply  its  own  kind  before  it  dies.  Its 


110  L^f(^    (ind    Counter    Life. 

wants  were  only  a  little  liquid,  but  that  was 
so  real  that  without  it  it  could  not  have  mul- 
tiplied its  own  kind  or  left,  in  dying,  a  beauti- 
ful microscopic  shell  as  a  sample  of  its  skill  to 
surprise  and  instruct  the  wisest  of  men  for 
ages  to  come  in  the  chalk  beds  of  England. 
But  as  we  turn  with  upward  glances  toward 
a  higher  and  larger  kind  of  aquatic  animals 
wants  are  multiplied  apace.  It  is  not  a  mere 
drop  of  lime  or  saline  water  that  a  whale 
requires  ;  but,  with  his  enormous  mouth 
open,  he  must  swim  through  whole  schools 
of  small  aquatic  animals  and  engulf  them 
by  myriads  into  his  capacious  chest  and 
there  digest  them  and  transform  them  into 
flesh  and  oil  and  whalebone  for  the  use  of 
men. 

And  so  there  is  an  index  finger  in  every 
life  pointing  to  a  transformation  work  to  be 
done  in  the  attainment  of  a  useful  end  in 
the  service  of  men.  The  earth  itself  were  a 
useless  thing  by  itself  alone,  with  no  end  to 
serve,  for  all  values  are  determined  where 
transfers  are  made,  and  until  life  came  into 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  Ill 

the  world  there  was  nothing  to  make  matter 
valuable  ;  but  life  has  use  for  it  and  need  of 
it.  So  the  only  fair  deduction  is  that  God 
made  the  material  world  for  the  use  of  the 
living  world,  and  hence  that  He  purposed 
at  the  first  what  to  have  in  his  finished  work 
at  the  last,  and  included  all  the  requisite 
means  tor  its  accomplishment.  The  Divine 
object  and  plan  of  creation  opens  Godward 
plainer  and  brighter  with  each  new  day. 
The  principle  of  contrasts  is  universal  in 
matter  and  in  life  organized  in  matter. 
Solids  are  seen  in  contrast  with  fluids,  or- 
ganized matter  in  contrast  with  unorgan- 
ized, friendly  plants  and  friendly  lives  in 
contrast  with  unfriendly  plants  and  animals, 
good  trees  in  contrast  with  briars,  weeds  and 
thistles  ;  domestic^animals  in  contrast  with 
vipers  and  scorpions  —animals  not  made 
for  willing  service  of  men,  but  to  excite  their 
watchfulness  and  defence  against  them.  All 
over  the  world,  up  and  down  the  walks  of 
men,  these  contrasts  are  at  hand  striving  for 
the  mastery.     Unfriendly  lives   are   all   fur- 


112  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

nished,  directly  or  indirectly,  with  offensive 
and  defensive  arms  and  supplies  of  energy 
for  the  conflict.  It  is  not  a  true  view  of  the 
plan  of  creation  to  imagine  that  conflicts 
among  sentient  beings  were  never  intended. 
The  true  view  is  that  conflicts  are  the  sub- 
ject matter  of  a  perfect  law  of  righteousness, 
and  when  these  occur  where  they  ought  not 
they  are  a  sin  against  God  and  the  forfeit  of 
His  blessing.  But  to  imagine  that  a  man  is 
not  to  destroy  the  weeds  in  his  garden,  or  the 
wild  wolf  at  his  hen  roost,  is  a  false  view  of 
the  use  we  should  make  of  means  God  has 
provided  for  our  education,  development 
and  character,  manliness  and  courage.  Yea, 
even  our  Godliness  requires  this.  We  take 
no  adequate  measure  of  the  usefulness  of 
enemies  until  we  see  that  no  human  char- 
acter was  ever  perfected  without  them  ;  the 
duties  of  life  are  modified  by  them,  and 
moral  government  obtains  its  meaning  from 
their  existence  ;  they  excite  us  to  watchful- 
ness, and  make  us  feel  our  need  of  Divine 
care  and  guidance.     If  our  enemies  are  men, 


Life    and    Counter    Lift.  113 

aud  our  obedieuce  to  God  cau  make  them 
friends,  we  have  great  joy  in  their  recovery. 
If  they  are  creatures  of  a  lower  order  ot  be- 
ings, injurious  to  men,  they  should  be  ex- 
pelled from  human  abodes,  if  need  be,  by 
the  forfeit  of  their  lives.  The  ravenous 
wolf  has  no  place  in  the  nursery  with  the 
Shepherd's  tender  children,  neither  with 
His  precious  lambs  in  the  flock. 

Whoever  is  a  friend  to  all  the  good  beings 
there  are  in  the  world  must  needs  be  an  en- 
emy to  all  the  evil  and  prepared  with  the 
"  whole  armor  of  God  to  resist  it." — Eph. 
vi  :  13 .  I  deem  it  a  false  sentiment  to  think 
of  the  broad  universal  contrasts  and  con- 
flicts in  this  world  as  an  oversight  or  an  ac- 
cident under  God,  who  is  calling  us  up  to 
Himself  and  away  from  these  conflicts  when 
our  characters  are  perfected  by  giving  our 
love  and  allegiance  to  our  Heavenly  Father 
above  all  else.  "This  is  our  victory  that 
overcometh  the  world,  even  our  faith  in 
God." — I  John,  v  :  4. 

Besides  vegetable  and  animal  life  there  are 


114  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

two  other  aud  higher  kinds  that  have  come- 
into  the  world  since  the  first  two  came,  and 
they  grade  upward  from  animal  life  after 
the  same  manner  that  all  life  grades  upward 
from  unorganized  matter.  There  are  cer- 
tain possibilities  in  mineral  matter  when 
acted  upon  by  electricity  that  give  an  ap- 
pearance of  forms  aud  motions  made  by 
life.  They  are  forms  scarcely  distinguish- 
able from  organized  matter,  although  en- 
tirely destitute  of  any  functional  capacity 
whatever.  From  this  low  mineral  base  life 
begins  and  grades  upward,  while  it  spreads 
abroad  in  endless  varieties,  until  the  highest 
order  of  vegetable  and  animal  life  is 
reached  ;  then  human  life,  coming  next  in 
order,  grades  upward  as  well.  It  differs  in 
the  lowest  from  the  mere  animal  life  in  its 
combinations  of  intellectual  and  moral  fac- 
ulties ;  its  self-government  is  expressed  in 
laws  that  mere  animal  life  cannot  compre- 
hend— there  is  a  moral  meaning  in  the 
words  *'  right  and  wrong  ''  which  no  mere 
animal  can  ever  know.       A   horse  may  be 


Life    and    Counter    Life.  115 

taught  to  observe  the  landmarks  of  his 
owner's  field,  but  not  for  the  reason  that  the 
Eighth  Commandment  would  be  violated 
by  pasturing  upon  another  man's  lot.  Man 
is  capable  of  a  greater  variety  of  studies,  and 
of  obtaining  different  and  higher  knowl- 
edge, than  can  be  predicated  of  animals  ;  he 
is  a  more  intelligent  and  comprehensive 
character  ;  he  is  capable  of  forming  ideals 
of  beauty  and  of  improvement  in  character  ; 
he  is  capable  of  feeling  a  difference  between 
right  and  wrong,  and  of  willing  to  do  the 
right ;  he  is  capable  of  rendering  obedience 
to  the  laws  that  grade  upward  from  the  mate- 
rial and  common  things  of  this  world  to  the 
highest  spiritual  and  eternal  verities  of  the 
Divine  Father's  revealed  will.  Man's  life 
grades  downward  through  all  the  laws  of 
matter ;  his  very  blood  has  atoms  of  iron  in 
it ;  his  lungs  require  great  volumes  of  air 
■everyday,  perhaps  20,000  gallons  of  air  everj^ 
day  for  mere  breathing  purposes  ;  a  great 
user  of  matter  is  the  physical  man  for  his 
food   and  drink.       And    now,  turning  up- 


IIG  Life    and    Counter    Life. 

ward,  the  next  order  of  life  above  the  human 
is  the  spiritual  life.  This  differs  from  the 
human  in  its  conscious  relations  to  God  in 
a  higher  degree  than  is  common  to  human 
life  ;  the  spiritual  relations  to  God  as  a  spirit 
are  more  distinctly  realized  and  personally- 
felt  ;  the  spiritual  life  has  knowledge  in  its 
own  experience  whi-ch  did  not  come  to  it  by 
the  words  of  men  or  the  persuasions  of  men 
alone,  but  by  the  realized  presence  of  the 
Divine  being  and  the  assurance  of  a  per- 
sonal responsibility  to  Him.  Hence  the 
spiritual  is  closer  to  God  than  the  human 
life,  or  any  former  state  of  man's  experience 
in  his  relations  to  God,  so  that  sin  appears 
more  sinful  and  righteousness  more  blessed. 
The  spiritual  life  desires  the  will  of  God  to 
be  done  on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven,  and  it 
rejoices  in  righteousness  wherever  it  is  found 
among  men  ;  it  includes  greater  faith  in  God 
and  a  more  comprehensive  righteousness  in 
regard  to  both  God  and  men.  With  such, 
and  many  more  evidences  of  being  born  of 
God,  man's    life    may    rise   upward   to    its 


Lift    and    Counter    Life.  1 17 

crowning  height  of  a  spiritual  being,  with 
spiritual  faculties  and  sensibilities — a  child 
of  God  and  heir  to  eternal  life.  "Called^ 
not  to  be  conformed  to  this  world,  but  to  be 
transformed  by  the  renewing  of  our  minds, 
that  we  may  prove  what  is  that  good  and 
acceptable  and  perfect  will  of  God," — Ro- 
mans xii :  2.  The  experience  of  this  life  in 
doing  the  will  of  God  "is  righteousness 
and  peace  and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost."  The 
work  to  be  done  is  the  upbuilding  of  char- 
acter in  the  spiritual  kingdom  by  the  con- 
version of  men  to  Christ.  Our  estimate  of 
spiritual  things  is  above  all  earthly  values, 
so  that,  by  contrast,  the.  world  is  not  re- 
gretted either  as  it  passes  away  or  remains 
with  its  disciplinary  experiences  in  the 
school  of  Christ.  There  is,  therefore,  con- 
sistency in  the  plan  that  holds  the  body  to 
earth  ior  a  time  but  allows  the  mind,  by 
faith  and  hope  and  love,  to  converse  in 
heaven  and  to  strive  for  a  greater  fitness  to 
meet  the  glorified  Lord  and  to  see  Him  as 
He  is— "the  Son  of  God  and  the  son  of  man, 


118  Life   and    Counter    Life. 

who  came  that  we  might  have  life,  and  that 
we  might  have  it  more  abuudantly."  — 
Johu  X  :  lo. 

We  should  not  forget  that  all  moral  char- 
acter is  formed  on  the  human  side  and  grows 
by  free-will  acts,  by  acts  of  choice  at  the 
time  they  were  done.  When  moral  evil  is 
found  it  is  seen  as  the  result  of  a  voluntary 
opposition  to  or  a  departure  from  the  re- 
vealed will  of  God.  In  the  lower  kingdoms 
we  find  friends  and  enemies  to  men,  in  the 
Avorld  cf  humanity  we  find  friends  and  ene- 
mies to  God.  The  unavoidable  result  of  our 
personal  freedom  of  moral  action  is  that  we 
must  gravitate  to  one  or  the  other  of  these 
two  classes — friends  or  enemies  to  God.  It 
is  not  an  arbitrary  arrangement,  but  uni- 
versally arrived  at  by  free  will  from  first  to 
last — hence  the  necessity  of  growth  and 
progress  in  a  spiritual  life,  so  as  to  pass  be- 
yond the  condition  of  conflict  and  to  obtain 
unto  righteousness,  joy  and  peace  in  the 
Father's  house  in  heaven.  The  "  way,  the 
truth  and  the  life  "  is  preached  alike  to  all 


Life    and    Counter  Life.  111> 

men  and  always  ou  condition  of  a  ruling 
faith  in  our  Lord  and  Redeemer,  who  will 
save  to  the  uttermost  all  who  come  unto 
God  by  Him  "  who  died  for  us  and  rose 
again." — II  Cor.,  v  :  15. 


"For  the  commandment  is  a  lamp,  and 
the  law  is  light."  — Proy.  6:23. 


LAWS  AND  COUNTER  LAWS. 

CHAPTKR  IV. 

In  all  scientific  studies  known  phenom- 
ena must  be  referred  to  known  laws,  and 
newly  discovered  phenomena  must  be  re- 
ported in  some  way  as  a  farther  revelation 
of  laws,  for  in  science  there  is  nothing  with- 
out law.  Hence  we  speak  of  the  law  of 
gravitation,  the  law  of  the  repulsion  of 
atoms  and  the  diffusion  of  the  same  ;  the 
law  of  the  cohesion  of  atoms,  the  law  of 
chemical  affinity,  the  law  of  definite  pro- 
portions in  chemical  compounds  ;  the  law 
of  momentum,  the  law  of  the  reflection  of 
light  and  of  the  radiation  of  the  same  ;  the 
law  of  combustion  and  of  heat,  electricit}-, 
galvanism,  magnetism,  polarization,  crys- 
tallization ;  the  laws  of  colors  and  of  the 
blending  of  colors  ;  and  of  numerous  other 
laws  known    to   science   in   the   conduct  of 


122  Laws  and  Counter  Laws. 
matter  and  classified  to  facilitate  farther 
studies  of  the  same  or  like  subjects.  To 
kuow  the  laws  of  nature  is  to  have  the  keys 
to  all  its  treasures,  the  treasures  of  the 
world.  The  creation  was  by  laws,  and  the 
whole  world  is  held  to  them  ;  so  that  we 
<:an  only  know  the  world  by  its  laws,  and 
ourselves  by  the  laws  of  our  own  existence. 
The  doors  to  knowledge  are  hung  on  laws 
and  opened  and  closed  by  them  ;  so,  as  fast 
as  we  know  the  laws  of  nature,  they  are  for 
our  use,  security,  enjoyment  and  well  being; 
-an  inheritance  for  all  the  human  race  and 
for  all  time  to  come .  So  far  as  we  have 
any  means  of  knowing  all  laws  are  eternal, 
and  more  and  more  beneficent  in  proportion 
as  they  are  respected  and  obeyed  and  their 
Author  loved  and  glorified. 

We  need  clear  views  of  what  we  under- 
stand by  the  word  law,  when  we  apply  it 
to  the  conduct  of  unconscious  matter. 
"When  we  use  the  word  in  relation  to  men 
with  intelligence,  freedom  of  will  and  power 
to  act  as  they  will,  we   mean  by  Lazu   some 


Laws  and  Counter  Laws.  123 
definite  rule  or  rules  of  conduct  to  be  per- 
formed by  subjects  owing  obedience  to  the 
government  or  ruler  by  whom  they  are 
governed,  and  by  whom  the  law  was  de- 
creed and  enjoined.  The  word  implies  a 
government  with  a  constitution  or  system 
of  rules  for  its  subjects  to  obey.  Five  things 
are  manifest.  The  government,  the  laws, 
the  subjects,  the  obedience  due  and  the 
manner  of  enforcing  it  with  the  rewards  and 
penalties. 

So  in  like  manner  in  the  conduct  of 
matter.  Any  rule  to  which  it  is  always  found 
to  conform  in  all  its  changes  of  state  and 
condition,  just  as  if  obligated  to  do  so  by 
some  eflScient  cause  governing  it,  is  properly 
called  a  law.  And  there  is  no  better  word 
in  science  and  none  better  understood,  ex- 
cept as  to  the  reason  why  matter  does  act 
so  in  conformity  to  rules.  Why  does  every 
atom  of  matter  and  cluster  of  atoms,  known 
to  men,  go  and  come  always  in  all  its 
changes  in  conformity  to  rules  with  a 
promptness   and   certainty   that  commands. 


124  Laws  and  Counter  Laws. 
our  admiration  and  confidence  in  spite  of 
all  its  wonderful  mysteriousness  to  our  com- 
prehension ?  We  see  unconscious  matter 
obeying  laws  and  revealing  the  same  to  us 
for  our  use  and  guidance.  What  a  pheuom- 
-enon  is  this  !  Where  can  we  find  the  ade- 
quate cause  for  this  conduct  of  unconscious 
matter  ?  We  ma}^  listen  for  an  answer  from 
the  earth,  and  many  are  seeking  and  wait- 
ing for  au  answer  to  come  from  matter  it- 
self just  where  it  is  manifested.  But  we 
must  not  confound  the  phenomenon  and  its 
cause,  or  make  them  both  one  and  indis- 
tinguishable. Of  course  we  see  the  con- 
duct of  matter  in  itself ;  there  is  nowhere 
else  to  see  it.  But  to  say  that  unconscious 
matter  acts  in  itself  because  it  acts  so  of  it- 
self is  not  scientific,  and  not  as  ingenuous 
as  to  confess  ignorance.  Better  by  far  to 
refer  it  at  once  to  the  Infinite  One  above  us, 
the  Creator  of  all  things,  "in  whom  we  live 
and  move  and  have  our  being." 

Let  us,  therefore,  answer  reverently   that 
all  we  know  of  the   cause  of  conformitv  to 


Lairs  and  Counter  Lavs.  125 
laws  as  we  see  it  iu  unconscious  matter  is 
that  God  has  obviously  made  it  so,  and  pre- 
determined all  such  matter  to  obey  laws  by 
a  necessity  of  its  own  nature.  This  facility 
of  matter  to  obey  laws,  this  responsiveness 
to  definite  rules  and  the  same  atom  of  mat- 
ter so  endowed  as  to  obey  a  very  great  va- 
riety of  laws,  is  of  God;  and  is  like  all  direct 
acts  of  Hi«,  graud  in  its  manifestations  and 
comprehensiveness.  We  recognize  its  un- 
speakable value,  caanot  imagine  how  the 
world  could  abide  for  a  moment  without  it, 
and  still  we  feel  that  the  way  of  it  is  incom- 
prehensible to  our  finite  minds. 

Any  act  of  God  is  all  powerful  within  the 
limits  He  gave  it  to  the  end  of  time.  So  of 
this  endowment  of  unconscious  matter  with 
ability  to  conform  to  law  ;  its  Author  had  a 
way  by  which  He  made  it  so  to  do.  We  do 
not  know  how  He  did  it.  We  account  for 
many  things  by  referring  them  to  the  wills 
and  ability  of  the  actors  ;  but  here  in  un- 
-sconscious  matter   there  is  no   will,  and  yet 


126       Laws    and    Counter    Laics. 

we  see  it  fulfilling   the  requirements   of  law 

more  strictly  than  su-bjects  that  have  will. 

If  we  trace  the  evidences  of  free  will  from 
man  downward  all  along  down  the 
lower  grades  of  life  to  its  vanishing 
point  in  unconscious  matter,  where 
»o  law  can  receive  an  obedience 
from  any  free  will,  instinct  or  tendency 
of  freedom,  we  find  in  matter  itself  an  ab- 
solute necessity  of  obedience  to  law  pure 
and  simple  ;  and  that  necessity  of  obedience 
not  to  one  law  alone,  but  to  all  the  laws  of 
matter  as  in  turn  it  becomes  qualified  to 
serve  one  after  another  in  all  the  pro- 
cesses and  changes  of  nature.  Is  not 
this  ot  God  ?  And  possiblj'  no  harder 
for  Him  than  to  make  man  with 
free  will,  and  after  that,  by  placing  him 
under  a  necessity  for  some  self  government 
in  the  use  of  that  gift  and  to  show  him 
that  he  has  it,  to  hold  him  as  a  subject  of 
both  necessity  and  free  will,  combined  and 
harmonized  in  the  highest  perfection  of 
faith.     That  is,  the  whole  man  and   all   his. 


Laics  and  Counter  Lavs.  127 
Tace  as  a  true  subject  of  all  his  laws  and  yet 
as  his  children  of  free  will.  The  one  need 
not  surprise  us  more  than  the  other.  Both 
are  unspeakably  surprisiuj^  and  undeniably 
true. 

All  the  laws  of  nature  are  acts  of  God,  and 
because  they  are  His  acts  they  continue  for- 
ever without  any  possibility  of  pause  or 
change,  except  in  the  will  of  the  Creator. 
He  alone  can  repeal  what  He,  Himself,  has 
decreed.  When  a  rule  is  given  by  an  act  or 
word  of  His,  all  atoms  of  matter  within  the 
limits  of  that  rule  must  be  subject  to  His 
government  and  obey  forever  and  every- 
where that  rule,  simply  because  the  effi- 
<;iency  of  an  act  of  God  has  no  limitations 
but  in  His  own  will.  God  said,  "  Let  there 
Idc  light,"  and  that  act  of  God  was  a  law  to 
-all  atoms  of  matter  of  every  kind  concerned 
in  light  being,  to  be  subject  to  that  rule  for 
all  time  to  come. 

All  acts  of  God  are  eternal  if  He  wills 
them  so.  Man  throws  a  stone  and, whether 
lie  wills  it   or   not,    it  falls   to   the  ground 


128  Lairs  and  Counter  Lavs. 
within  a  limited  time.  God  throws  the 
whole  world  and  it  goes  on  its  orbit  to  the 
end  of  time,  because  gravitation  is  an  act  of 
God.  He  turns  the  world  on  its  axis  and  it 
has  never  ceased  to  turn,  for  the  obvious 
reason  that  He  has  not  stopped  it  and  there 
is  no  one  else  that  can  stop  it. 

A  law  of  nature  is  a  strict  rule  of  action,, 
to  which  the  same  kind  of  matter,  under 
the  same  circumstances,  will  always  con- 
form. It  is  more  than  a  tendency  in  matter 
so  to  act.  We  can  and  do  trust  our  lives 
upon  it  and  feel  there  is  a  certainty  that  it 
will  do  again  and  again  just  what  it  did  be- 
fore, with  all  the  conditions  preci£ely  the 
same,  and  we  dare  not  trust  them  for  any- 
thing else,  however  much  we  may  desire  a 
deviation  on  special  occasions.  We  see  the 
laws  through  the  extreme  accuracy  with 
which  they  are  kept,  and  we  ascribe  them 
to  God  the  same  as  \se  do  the  creation  of 
the  world  itself;  all  these  are  His  acts  and 
the  world  creation  includes  them.  Howbeit, 
the  omnipresent  God  must  be  imminent  in 


Lcncs  and  Covnte?'  Lairs.  129 
all  His  laws  aud  yet  distinct  from  them. 
*'  In  Him  we  live  aud  move  and  have  our 
being,"  yet  we  are  distinct  from  Him. 
"God  is  a  Spirit." 

Our  view  of  lav7  relations  to  matter  is 
that  all  things  are  at  all  times  under  all  the 
laws  of  matter,  and  that  any  given  atom,  or 
mass  of  atoms,  may  at  one  time  be  more 
prominently  and  manifestly  under  one  law, 
and  at  another  time  prominently  under  an- 
other law  ;  but  that  all  things  are  law  sub- 
jects and  constantly  within  the  scope  of  all 
the  laws  of  matter  aud  of  nature,  from  which 
no  atom  ever  has  had,  or  ever  can  have,  any 
freedom  of  nature  to  escape.  All  the  laws 
of  nature  are  constant  and  unchangeable, 
but  all  the  matter  in  the  world  is  inconstant 
and  changeable,  subject  to  new  conditions, 
combinations  and  transformations  and  re- 
combinations. What  may  be  the  higher  or 
manifest  law  to  any  given  matter  in  one 
point  of  time  may  not  be  so  in  the  next,  for 
there  is  always  a  higher  law  present,  when- 
ever   there    is    any    matter    ready    to    re- 


130  Laws  and  Counter  Laws. 
ceive  it.  Matter  may  change  rapidly 
from  oue  law  to  another,  as  it  becomes 
fitted  for  such  changes  of  manifestation, 
for  it  is  a  law  of  all  the  laws  to  take  matter 
that  is  fitted  to  respond  obediently  in  ser- 
vice to  its  rule  and  no  other.  The  changes 
by  which  matter  passes  from  one  law  to  an- 
other must  always  take  place  in  itself  and 
not  in  the  laws.  All  the  mechanisms  of 
nature,  with  all  the  forces  of  the  same,  are 
working  on  in  their  respective  spheres  in 
the  preparation  of  matter,  in  the  getting  it 
ready  to  pass  from  one  higher  law  to  an- 
other in  its  rounds  of  services  in  nature. 
Fire,  water,  life,  sunlight  and  darkness, 
air  and  chemical  forces  of  endless  variety 
and  power,  with  electricty,  are  working  in 
and  with  matter  to  get  it  in  condition  and 
ready  to  obey  other  higher  laws,  just  as  fast 
as  its  finished  work,  under  present  laws, 
will  permit  it  so  to  do. 

In  all  these  processes  with  matter  we  see 
the  law  of  rejection, as  well  as  the  law  of  ac- 
ceptance, manifested  all  the   waj'   down  to 


Laics  and  Counter  Laics.  131 
the  lowest  conditions  of  matter  ;  only  a 
part  of  any  divided  mass  ever  goes  at  once 
to  the  same  law.  Purification  of  matter  im- 
plies dividing  and  separating  the  pure  from 
the  impure,  yet  neither  part,  in  such  a  case, 
escapes  in  the  least  from  law,  for  there  is 
no  atom  of  any  kind  of  matter  that  does  not 
reveal  in  itself  the  evidence  of  conformity 
to  one  or  more  laws.  When  we  see  a  snow- 
flake  we  recognize  at  once  five  or  more  laws 
of  matter  revealed  in  it:  ist.— Cohesion,  or 
we  could  not  see  it.  2nd. — Congelation,  or 
it  would  be  a  liquid  drop  and  not  a  snow- 
flake.  3rd. — Crystallization,  or  its  charm- 
ing mathematical  forms  of  angles  would  not 
appear.  4th. — The  reflection  of  light,  or  its 
radiant  beauty  would  be  wanting.  5th. — 
Gravitation,  or  it  would  not  descend.  Grav- 
itation brings  it  down.  Heat  melts  it  and 
turns  it  into  water.  More  heat  evaporates 
it  into  mist  ;  then  still  finer  mist,  even  fluid, 
and  now  it  obeys  the  law  of  repulsion  and 
difi"usion  and  so  passes  away  in  the  opposite 
direction  from  what  gravitation  would   take 


132  Laws  and  Counter  Laws. 
it,  aud  of  course  by  a  law  that  is  opposite  to 
gravitation.  Gravitation  is  seen  in  matter 
moving  or  tending  to  move  toward  the 
centre  of  the  earth,  and  our  snow-flake, 
aided  by  heat,  is  now  free  from  thatlaw,and 
having  gone  farther  from  mist  to  real  fluid, 
and  passing  as  fluid  into  the  service  of  the 
law  of  repulsion, is  now  in  millions  of  atoms, 
a  numerous  fleet,  sailing  upward  through  the 
air  towards  the  firmament  above, and  the  fact 
that  we  do  not  see  it  going  up  is  our  witness 
that  it  is  free  from  cohesion  in  very  deed, 
free  from  congelation,  free  from  crystalliza- 
tion, free  from  reflecting  light  aud  free 
from  gravitation — though  it  may  soon  come 
again  under  these  or  some  of  these  laws, 
unless  it  is  caught  in  a  fog,  or  joius  its 
forces  in  some  descending  rain  drops,  or  is 
drawn  off"  into  some  work  of  vegetation,  or  is 
quaff'ed  by  some  animal  in  breathing,  or  is 
yet  driven  of  the  winds  on  some  long  ex- 
cursion. No  laws  are  more  opposite  than 
repulsion  and  cohesion, yet  enormous  quan- 
tities of  matter  are  passing   and  re-passing 


Laice  and  Counter  Laws.  133 
every  moment  from  one  state  to  the  other, 
not  by  their  own  conflicts  alone  ;  heat  and 
cold  and  life  are  very  prominent  agencies. 
All  the  forces  of  nature  have  their  due  part 
in  all  such  changes.  If  the  atoms  in  any 
solid  form  are  to  be  made  ready  to  serve  re- 
pulsion they  must  be  reduced  by  heat,  or, 
in  some  way,  be  pulverized  to  an  impalpable 
dust  till  its  atoms  are  freed  from  cohesion. 
I  repeat,  matter  is  never  taken  by  a  law  it 
is  not  fitted  to  manifest  and  serve.  Its  fit- 
ness of  condition,  its  preparedness  to  obey, 
is  the  ground  of  its  election  to  any  new 
service  or  higher  law. 

All  matter  goes  at  once  from  one  law  to 
another  as  fast  as  it  is  made  ready  so  to  do. 
What  is  trampled  under  foot  of  men  to-day 
may  in  due  time  appear  in  the  tints  of  a  rose 
or  in  the  happy,  bright  eyes  of  a  young 
philosopher  ;  for  there  is  in  the  world  vast 
opportunities  for  fluid  matter  to  keep  up  a 
circuit  of  changes  ;  that  is  to  say,  to  new 
services  under  laws.  There  is  no  dignity  in 
matter  itself,  except   in  the  laws   it  reveals 


134  Laws  and  Counter  Laws. 
and  honors.  Environments  changes  matter 
but  not  laws.  We  may  take  a  diamond  from 
a  king's  crown  and  place  it  in  oxygen  gas 
and  touch  it  with  a  match  and  it  will  flame 
up  at  once  and  all  will  become  carbonic 
acid  gas,  yet  no  law  in  the  world  has  changed 
a  particle.  I  take  in  my  hand  a  lump  of 
anthracite.  Here  are  atoms  of  carbon  man- 
ifestly subject  to  the  law  of  cohesion  in  this 
lump  of  coal,  and  they  obey  the  law  of 
gravitation  by  falling  from  my  hand  down 
upon  the  fire  on  the  grate,  where,  submit- 
ting to  the  law  of  combustion,  they  are  ex- 
pelled by  heat  force  up  the  chimney  into  the- 
air  and  serve  obediently  under  the  law  of  re- 
pulsion of  heat  and  cold  and  air  currents  un- 
til they  arrive  at  a  living  tree,  when  the  law 
of  vegetable  life  gives  to  them  a  fit  place  in 
the  leaves  of  the  tree,  to  serve  the  laws  of 
life  and  of  cohesion  and  of  color  and  of 
gravitation  and  of  the  winds  that  blow  up- 
on it,  first  one  way  and  then  another,  until 
a  camel  comes  along  and  browses  the  leaf 
and  it  then   submits   to  the  law  of  mastica- 


Laws  and  Counter  Laics.  135 
tion  and  digestion,  the  law  of  liquids  and  of 
veinous  and  arterial  circulation,  the  law  of 
assimilation  and  other  laws  of  animal  life, 
until  the  law  of  ejectments  gets  it  in  the 
breath  or  perspiration  or  some  other  of  the 
animal's  refuses,  when  it  may  pass  under 
some  chemical  law  of  combination  and  so- 
lution to  the  root  or  leaves  of  a  rose  bush 
and  serve  the  law  of  life  then  a  while  and 
finally  appear  in  some  beautiful  tints  of  the 
full-blown  rose,  perhaps  to  be  gathered  and 
passed  to  the  compounder  of  attar  of  roses, 
and  then  to  become  choice  perfumery  for 
some  lady's  toilet.  All  I  wish  or  aim  to  say 
now  is  that  material  atoms  are  always  sub- 
ject to  any  law  they  are  prepared  for,  and 
they  never  do  serve,  or  continue  to  serve, 
any  law  they  are  not  prepared  for  and  put 
in  condition  to  serve  and  obey.  The  atoms 
of 'carbon  in  a  lump  of  coal  cannot  be  sub- 
ject to  any  law  of  life  until  they  are  set  free 
from  the  law  of  cohesion.  No  law  of  life 
ever  appropriates  atoms  finally  until  they 
are  reduced  to  a  fluid   state.     I   do  not  say 


136  Laics  and  Counter  Laws. 
that  auimal  organisms  are  uot  provided 
with  means  of  reducing  solids  to  fluids,  but 
we  have  before  seen  that  all  things  that  are 
made,  or  grow,  are  made  in  the  use  of  atoms, 
pre- existing  in  a  fluid  state  ;  that  the  fluid 
state  is  maintained  by  the  law  of  repulsion, 
and  the  solid  state  by  the  law  of  cohesion. 
Separate  from  these  two  laws,  exactly  oppo- 
site to  each  other,  there  is  no  life  organism, 
and  hence  no  law  of  lite  manifested  to  us 
where  either  of  these  laws  are  absent. 
There  are  swarms  of  life  organisms  so  small 
as  to  be  scarcely  visible  in  their  individual- 
ity, and  not  one  of  these  could  live  in  one 
state  of  matter  alone.  Fluid  alone  cannot 
constitute  an  organism,  and  a  solid  alone 
cannot  nourish  one  and  keep  it  alive. 

There  runs  through  nature  a  co-operation 
of  laws  notwithstanding  their  opposiles, 
and  there  is  nothing  known  to  us  that  does 
not  manifest  obedience  to  two  or  more  laws 
of  nature,  however  rapidly  it  may  pass  from 
one  to  another.  The  law  of  cohesion  of 
matter  is  the  most  manifest  in  things  visible 


Laws  and  Counter  Laws.  137 
as  they  now  are  ;  and  the  holding  of  atoms 
together  makes  it  possible  for  them  to  obey 
the  law  of  gravitation.  The  withdrawal  of 
<:ohe«ion  would  leave  the  whole  visible 
world,  including  our  own  bodies,  to  fall 
back  again  into  invisible  atoms,  "without 
form  and  void."  All  the  variety  and  beauty 
there  is  in  the  world  would  vanish  in  a 
moment.  There  could  be  no  such  thing  as 
form,  or  color,  without  cohesion.  Light,  it- 
self, can  have  no  color  until  it  touches  some 
surface  where  cohesion  exists.  All  this  is 
but  one  thing  in  the  value  of  one  of  the 
laws  by  which  the  Creator  governs  the  ma- 
terial universe.  We  can  think  of  laws 
separately,  but  it  is  vain  to  imagine  that 
they  have  ever  existed  separately  since 
the  beginning  of  the  creation. 

We  notice  that  laws  of  nature  are  uniform 
wherever  we  may  go.  That  is,  anything 
that  is  subject  to  any  given  law  is  subject  to 
the  same  law  under  the  same  conditions 
everywhere.  A  body  that  is  subject  to  the 
law  of  gravitation  on  the  land  is  subject  to 


138  Laws  and  Counter  Laics. 
the  same  law  on  the  sea,  and  in  the  air,  and 
to  the  farthest  of  globes  yet  seen  by  the 
telescope.  There  is  not  a  new  law  or  a  dif- 
ferent law  of  gravitation  in  one  place  from 
another,  but  the  law  is  one  and  always  the 
same,  under  the  same  conditions  of  matter 
to  obey  it.  And  so  of  the  law  of  repulsion 
and  of  cohesion.  As  far  as  any  telescope  can 
enable  us  to  observe,  there  is  the  same  law 
of  repulsion  that  ministers  to  our  world, 
serving  all  worlds  throughout  the  universe, 
and  the  same  law  of  cohesion  that  makes 
the  solids  of  our  earth  what  they  are— makes 
all  existing  solids  wherever  they  are.  It  is 
not  one  law  here  that  makes  atoms  free  in 
space  and  another  law  at  the  stars,  and  it  is 
not  one  law  here  that  holds  atoms  together,, 
and  makes  solids  capable  of  gravitation^ 
and  another  law  at  the  moon  that 
makes  that  capable  of  gravitation.  And  so 
of  the  laws  of  light,  and  of  darkness,  and 
ofheat,  audof  cold.  They  have  no  local 
limitations  as  laws.  They  arc  not  local  to 
the  world  as   laws,  have   no   power  in  one 


Laics  and  Counter  Laws.  139 
place  that  they  have  not  in  all  places,  under 
the  same  circumstances,  with  the  same 
matter  with  which  they  have  to  do.  Upon 
the  retina  of  our  eyes  the  light  falls  as 
readily  from  the  distant  Sirius  as  from  the 
near  Venus.  To  know  the  laws  of  light  in 
one  world  is  probably  to  know  them  in  all 
worlds  under  like  conditions.  That  the  gov- 
ernment of  all  the  material  worlds,  under  the 
same  Creator,  are  by  the  same  laws  we  have 
no  reason  to  doubt. 

Whatever  is  to  be  the  subject  of  any  given 
law,  at  any  given  place,  must  be  made 
ready  for  it,  be  exactly  conditioned  and 
prepared  for  it.  Every  law  of  nature  knows 
its  own  subjects  on  the  instant.  If  the  law 
of  gravitation  finds  a  boy  on  the  limb  of  a 
tree  too  weak  to  hold  him,  it  claims  the 
right  to  take  that  boy  a  quick  and  direct 
passage  towards  the  centre  of  the  earth  to  the 
next  station,  and  we  have  never  felt  any 
surprise  that  it  does  the  same  thing  with  an 
apple  in  the  same  circumstances,  when  its 
stem  is  insufficient  to  hold  it.     We  see   pre- 


140  Laus  and  Counter  Laws. 
cisely  the  same  rule  iu  all  the  other  laws  of 
nature  ;  uoue  takes  but  that  which  is  in  con- 
dition to  obey  it.  If  sunlight  finds  a  sensa- 
tive  plate  all  ready  for  a  photograph,  the 
camera  and  plate  all  ready  iu  their  due 
places,  and  a  boy  presents  his  face  in  due 
manner,  an  outline  of  the  boy's  face  will  be 
made  on  the  glass.  Thus  are  the  laws  of 
nature  for  the  use  of  men  on  condition  of 
co-operation  in  preparing  for  them.  Give 
the  sunlight  an  opportunity  and  it  will  show 
its  willingness  to  serve  men.  Prof.  Henry 
remarked  in  his  day — "  A  man  might  spend 
a  lifetime  in  the  study  of  one  ray  of  light 
and  do  good  service  for  men." 

If  we  look  at  laws  in  their  contrasts,  and 
classify  them  by  contrasts,  we  can  always- 
put  with  any  given  law  of  nature  another 
law  that  is  exactly  contrary  to  the  first  in  all 
their  manifestations  in  the  material  world. 
For  example,  take  repulsion  and  cohesion. 
Cohesion  holds  atoms  of  matter  together  and 
keeps  them  solid,  (its  distinctive  work  is  al- 
ways in  that  direction  and   no   other,)  while 


Laws  and  Counter  Laws.  141 
repulsion  drives  atoms  apart  aud  keeps 
them  fluid,  (that  is  its  distinctive  work  al- 
ways aud  everywhere.) 

And  so  of  all  other  laws  of  matter.  There 
are  those,  when  considered  aloue,  that  tend 
to  final  results  of  extremest  unlikeuess.  At 
the  exact  poiut  of  starting,  the  two  are  to- 
gether, and  the  difference  iu  work  is  least,  if 
perceptible  ;  then  moviug  from  the  neutral, 
their  opposites  become  immeasurable. 
Let  cohesion  begin  to  manifest  itself  in 
cooling  steam,  turning  it  into  mist,  a  very 
thin  fog,  then  a  de»nser  fog,  and  then  into 
water,  then  ice  and  the  hardest  possible  ice  ; 
while  in  the  opposite  direction  from  the 
place  of  starting,  the  beginning  of  repulsion  is 
seen  in  changing  the  fog  to  a  lighter  density 
and  then  to  invisibility  in  the  clear  atmos- 
phere, higher  and  higher  up,  becoming  more 
and  more  attenuated  as  the  lav/  works  farther 
and  farther  away  towards  its  own  supremacy 
of  power  in  the  repulsion  of  atoms,  far  from 
oue  another  in  the  thin  ether  beyond  the 
skies.     Such  opposite  works  are  common  to 


1-42  Laics  and  Counter  Laics. 
all  the  laws  of  uature  wheu  considered  iu 
this  way  by  their  distinctive  contrasts.  No 
solid  can  be  more  solid  than  the  law  of 
cohesion  prescribes,  and  no  fluid  can  be 
more  fluid  than  the  law  of  repulsion  pre- 
scribes. The  solid  rock  may  be  an  example 
on  the  one  side  of  cohesion,  and  the  lightest 
ether  above  the  skies  for  the  extreme  repul- 
sion of  atoms  ;  while  betw^een  these  opposite 
extremes  of  work,  done  conformably  to  the 
two  opposite  laws ,  all  other  matter  in  the 
world  must  be  classified  iu  respect  to  its 
hardness  or  fluidity  by  degrees  of  subjection 
to  either  one  or  the  other  of  these  two  laws. 
A  solid  may  be  so  near  fluid  that  we  cannot 
place  it,  and  a  fluid  may  be  so  near  solid 
that  its  true  state  is  uncertain. 

Let  us  bear  iu  mind  that  this  difference  is 
not  because  one  has  mineral  atoms  and  the 
other  has  not,  for  both  have  that.  And  it  is 
not  because  oue  law  is  stronger  than  the 
other,  for  both  are  infinite  in  the  matter  pre- 
pared for  them.  And  it  is  not  because  they 
do   not  start   out   from   one   and  the   same 


Laics  and  Counter  Laics.  143 
place,  or  from  one  common,  invisible  and 
neutral  point,  but  it  is  because  their  out- 
going is  in  opposite  directions.  If  we  grade 
solids  up  towards  the  fluids,  and  fluids  down 
towards  the  solids,  we  shall  come  to  matter 
so  neutral  that  science  does  not  know  which 
law  it  is  obe3'ing,  and  still  we  feel  that  no 
atom  of  matter  can  conform  manifestly 
to  these  two  opposite  laws  at  one  and  the 
same  time.  Every  atom  of  matter  in  the 
universe  belongs,  at  each  moment  of  time, 
to  either  a  fluid  or  a  solid  state,  and  not  to 
both  at  the  same  time. 

In  some  instances  outgoing  forces  in  mat- 
ter are  simultaneous  in  opposite  directions. 
They  are  ascribed  to  one  law,  and  the  op- 
posites  in  its  action  are  said  to  be,  the  one 
positive  and  the  other  negative  ;  as  when  we 
say  of  the  magnet — the  end  that  attracts  is 
positive,  and  the  end  that  repels  is  negative. 
"  lyike  poles  repel  and  unlike  poles  attract." 
So  of  electricity — there  are  two  kinds  always 
present ;  the  one  kind  is  said  to  be  positive 
and  the  other  negative,   and  all  substances 


144  Laws  and  Gounfer  Laws. 
mauifestiug  electricity  are  said  to  be  electro- 
positive or  electro  negative,  in  relation  to 
each,  other,  according  to  the  electricity  they 
contain  at  the  time  of  the  experiment.  Here, 
again,  is  the  same  law  ;  unlike  electricity 
attracts  and  like  electricity  repels.  However 
this  simultaneousness  of  opposite  actions  in 
the  same  manner  is  not  commonly  mani- 
fested precisely  in  that  way,  neither  do  we 
know  positively  that  there  are  not  as  many 
laws  in  electricity  and  magnetism  as  these 
contrary  actions.  The  visible  material  in 
which  they  act  is  not  altered.  Commonly 
opposite  laws  in  matter  are  known  by  ac- 
tions and  changes  that  do  alter  its  form  and 
condition,  and  therefore  cannot  both  be 
manifested  as  working  supremely  in  a  small 
particle  of  it  at  the  same  time  and  place,  as 
magnetism  and  electricity  do.  We  can  find 
no  magnet  so  small  as  not  to  have  its  two 
poles  and  two  kinds  of  action.  The  mag- 
net's two  states  are  always  in  its  own  little 
self,  as  well  as  in  the  two  poles  of  the  world. 
Heat   and  cold   are  not  simultaneous  and 


Laws  and  Counter  Laws.  145 
co-preseut  in  the  same  sense  and  maauer. 
They  do  not  touch  each  other  everywhere  in 
the  same  degree  all  the  time  in  the  same 
atoms  of  matter.  They  are  not  both  in  the 
one  place  at  the  same  time  in  equal  force. 
Heat  aud  cold,  as  opposites  to  each  other, 
are  present  in  the  same  matter  only  in  the 
relative  degrees  of  force.  The  two  are  in  a 
state  of  resistance  everywhere,  pushing  each 
other  as  contending  forces  through  all  the 
seasons  of  the  year,  and  in  all  the  elements 
of  nature.  When  we  wish  to  help  the  cold 
in  the  pitcher  of  water  on  the  table  we 
douse  a  piece  of  ice  into  the  water,  and  that 
reinforces  the  cold.  Again,  if  we  desire 
more  warmth  of  air  in  our  study,  we  increase 
the  furnace  fire  and  that  reinforces  the  heat. 
Atoms  in  some  way  act  in  obedience  to 
the  law  of  heat,  or  the  law  of  cold,  so  that 
only  one  shall  occupy  the  same  atom  of 
matter  supremely  at  the  same  time  and 
place,  though  both  forces  are  present  in 
relative  degrees.  In  this,  as  in  all  other 
contrasts,    there    is    somewhere    an   initial 


146  Laws  and  Counter  Laws. 
point,  a  neutrality  from  which  both  heat  and 
cold  started,  and  from  which  heat  goes  off 
in  one  direction  and  cold  in  the  other,  in 
exact  conformity  to  all  known  laws  in  mat- 
ter to  their  extremest  unlikeuess.  Heat 
reaches  somewhere  in  one  direction  its 
highest  degree  of  temperature  in  matter, 
and  cold  in  the  opposite  direction  reaches 
somewhere  its  lowest  degree  of  temperature 
in  matter.  And  all  the  way  between  these 
extremes  must  be  graded  whatever  else  in 
the  world  is  subject  to  heat  or  cold. 

See  another  example  in  light  and  dark- 
ness. They  are  in  exact  contrast.  Their 
work  goes  out  from  one  initial  point,  but  in 
opposite  directions.  The  supremacy  of  the 
one  is  a  triumph  over  the  other.  They  can- 
not both  be  supremely  manifested  in  the 
same  place  at  the  same  time,  and  there  is 
somewhere  the  highest  created  light ;  and,, 
somewhere  at  the  extreme  opposite  of  this, 
the  deepest  existing  darkness  ;  and,  there  is 
always,  somewhere,  a  seemingly  neutral 
point,  where  we  cannot  tell  which  is  for  the 


Laws  and  Counter  Laics.  147 
time  prevailiug  over  the  other  ;  but  when 
their  extremes  are  reached  we  know  that 
between  the  two  all  other  degrees  of  light 
or  darkness  must  be  discovered.  For  we 
know  that  light,  as  a  force  in  nature,  tends 
to  make  things  visible  ;  and  darkness,  its 
opposite  force  in  nature,  tends  to  make 
things  invisible. 

There  is  no  evidence  that  the  law  princi- 
ples that  are  always  producing  opposite  re- 
sults in  matter  according  to  its  preparedness 
for  opposite  laws.  There  is  no  evidence 
that  this  principle  which  extends  all  the 
way  through  the  science  of  matter  does  not 
extend  also  beyond  and  above  matter.  We 
see  in  morals  the  same  rule  of  opposites  and 
contrasts.  All  uulikenesses  have  their  ex- 
tremes apart,  and  their  up  and  down  grades 
to  and  from  each  other  in  morals  in  a  man- 
ner similar  to  what  we  always  see  in  matter. 

Truth  and  lying  are  exact  opposites  that 
run  apart  in  works  and  character  to  the 
farthest  extremes  of  conduct  and  character. 
Truth  makes  knowledge  possible  to  us   and 


148  Laics  and  Counter  Laics. 
faith  reasonable,  while  lying,  the  exact  op- 
posite of  truth,  makes  knowledge  impossible 
to  us  and  faith  unreasonable.  To  believe 
known  lies,  if  it  were  possible,  would  be  sui- 
cide to  reason  and  confusion  to  all  our  men- 
tal faculties.  Lies  are  the  negatives  of  truth, 
and  need  the  negatives  of  our  faith.  To  finite 
minds  there  is  a  neutral  ground  where  a  de- 
viation from  the  truth  may  be  so  slight  and 
unintentional  as  to  leave  a  doubt  of  its  real 
place  and  character,  but  when  the  art  and 
habit  of  lying  has  taken  a  moral  agent  down 
to  the  lowest  depths  of  falsity,  so  that  its  op- 
posite to  truth  can  go  no  farther,  there  is  a 
long  space  between  them  fi.lled  all  the  way 
with  agents  ranged  and  graded  as  to  degrees 
of  truthfulness  or  untruthfulness  as  the  op- 
posites  recede  from  the  neutral  line  at  which 
both  started. 

So  of  love  and  hate— they  are  exact  oppo- 
sites  in  the  hearts  of  men.  L/Ove  makes 
mutual  gladness  possible  for  one  and  the  same 
event  for  all  who  have  the  same  love.  Its^ 
contrast  is  hate,  which  makes  mutual   glad- 


Laics  and  Counter  Laics.  141> 
ness  impossible  for  one  and  the  same  event 
among  those  who  hate  one  another.  The 
tendencies  of  the  two  laws  are  to  the  ex- 
treme opposites  of  each  other.  Yet  there  is, 
to  finite  minds,  a  neutral  ground  somewhere, 
in  which  a  person  may  not  know  to  which 
of  the  two  opposites  he  yields  his  own  heart 
as  a  loyal  subject ;  yet  no  one  can  be  on  both 
sides  at  one  and  the  same  time.  The  Saviour 
seems  to  have  used  the  word  hate  with  this 
exactness  to  law  when  He  used  it  to  iuclude 
whoever  may  be  in  nearest  proximity  to  the 
law  of  love  to  Him,  but  not  under  it  or  obe- 
dient to  it.  Luke  14-26.  Mat.  6-24.  *'  No 
man  can  serve  two  masters  ;  for  either  he 
will  hate  the  one  and  love  the  other,  or  else 
he  will  hold  to  the  one  and  despise  the  other. 
Ye  cannot  serve  God  and  Mammon."  Love 
and  hate  are  opposite  laws  going  out  in  op- 
posite directions  towards  opposite  ends 
from  the  one  human  heart  and  mind,  and  no 
person  can  follow  both  of  these  laws  in  re- 
spect to  the  same  object  at  the  same  time. 
While  this  is  self  evident,  it   is   not   always 


150  Lav:^  and  Counter  Laws. 
recognized  by  persons  who  do  not  feel  any 
hatred  toward  the  object  considered,  and 
probably  will  not  until  a  trial  or  temptation 
is  presented  to  the  mind  so  as  to  move  it  to 
assert  its  real  affection  either  for  or  against 
the  object  or  person  considered. 

If  we  examine  other  laws  of  the  heart  and 
mind  in  the  same  manner  regarding  their 
opposite?,  a  uniformity  of  principle  will  ap- 
pear among  them  all.  All  have  their  oppo- 
sites.  The  law  of  faith  has  its  opposite  in 
unbelief — in  no  faith.  No  person  can  re- 
spond to  both  these  laws  in  respect  to  the 
same  object  at  the  same  time.  The  one  law 
is  fulfilled  in  the  reliance  of  the  mind  upon 
propositions  considered  as  true,  and  the 
other  rejects  the  same  propositions  as  false  ; 
so  that  any  person  not  conscious  of  either 
faith  or  unbelief,  or  of  either  accepting  or 
rejecting  as  true  any  of  the  propositions  con- 
sidered, may  not  know  to  which  law  he  is  re- 
sponding, until  the  temptation  or  trial  of  his 
faith  is  made,  and  whatever  conduct  follows 
the  trial  will  show  whether  he  is  of  faith   or 


Lmcs  and  Counter  Laics.  151 
of  unbelief  in  respect  to  the  proposition  con- 
sidered. 

Faith  is  such  an  important  law  of  our 
hearts  and  minds  that  it  is  always  worth 
while  to  know  exactly  what  we  mean  by  the 
word,  or  what  the  law  is  we  keep  when  we 
have  faith.  It  has  been  said,  and  well  said, 
that—'*  Faith  is  a  dependence  on  the  ve- 
racity of  another."  But  what  is  it  that  the 
soul  does  to  place  itself  in  a  state  of  depend- 
ence upon  another?  How  can  the  soul 
know  it  has  faith  ?  What  is  faith  to  the  be- 
liever himself?  To  this  question  we  answer 
— Faith  is  an  act  of  the  whole  mind  as  a  unit. 
It  is  not  an  act  of  the  will  nor  of  the  under- 
standing, nor  an  act  of  the  judgment,  nor  of 
the  affections,  nor  of  the  conscience,  nor  an 
act  of  the  perceptive  faculties,  nor  an  act  of 
the  memory,  nor  an  act  of  refined  taste  and 
sentiment  ;  but  it  is  the  agreement  of  the 
whole  mind  in  the  absolute  veracity  and 
trustworthiness  of  the  author  of  its  own  con- 
victions. All  the  faculties  of  the  mind  have 
their  preliminary  work  in  leading  up  to  this 


152  Laics  and  Counter  Laics. 
supreme  agreement  of  itself  in  all  its  acts  of 
true  faith.  The  will  helps  the  miud  to  seek 
patiently  for  the  truth  ;  it  wills  the  mind  to 
be  impartial  and  thorough  in  obtaining  tes- 
timony, and  reason  makes  fair  and  true  dis- 
crimination in  the  same.  The  judgment  de- 
cides the  weight  of  evidence,  and  faith  comes 
from  the  agreement  of  all  these.  It  is  a 
simple  and  distinct  act  of  the  whole  heart 
and  mind,  as  one  act  by  one  mind  reposing 
its  trust  upon  some  other  mind  or  reality  as 
true,  and  therefore  of  complete  trustworthi- 
ness. The  immediate  object  of  faith  before 
the  miud  is  perfect  truth,  even  when  it  is  ap- 
prehended as  a  personal  subject.  If  I  be- 
lieve in  God,  it  is  because  my  whole  soul  re- 
poses upon  Him  as  a  true,  personal  and  trust- 
worthy being.  Let  faith  be  an  act  of  the 
whole  mind  and  not  a  part  of  it  ;  and  the 
immediate  object  of  faith  be  truth,  which 
may  be  in  a  person  who  has  convinced  us  of 
his  perfect  veracity  and  trustworthiness,  so 
that  we  can  and  do  reply  upon  that  veracity 
without  fear  of  its   failure.     Nothing   but   a 


Laws  and  Counter  Laics.  153 
false  faith  can  come  from  eflforts  at  willing 
the  mind  to  believe  evidences  that  are  not 
clear  and  conclusive,  and  of  force  to  carry 
conviction  to  the  whole  mind  in  its  perfect 
and  entire  integrity.  It  is  not  reason  to  try 
and  use  our  faith  as  we  do  our  eyes  to  look 
where  we  please.  Our  faith  should  go  with 
the  truths  proven  to  us  and  never  from  such 
truths  and  proofs.  Religion  is  never  honored 
by  a  chaffy  faith  that  floats  in  "every 
wind  of  doctrine,"  nor  by  a  medical  pre- 
scription faith  that  is  peddled  about  town 
for  money  and  taken  as  a  panacea  for  phys- 
ical diseases,  nor  by  any  wonders  of  faith 
that  would  see  some  mysterious  relic  of  the 
past — the  bones  of  reputed  saints  performing 
miracles.  But  actual,  genuine  faith,  resting 
in  the  whole  truth,  has  the  support  of  all  the 
intelligent  faculties  of  our  minds,  acting  in 
harmonious  agreement.  It  leads  the  whole 
soul  to  all  its  truly  hopeful  efforts.  When 
its  object  is  our  Divine  I^ord,  it  raises  the 
human  to  the  divine  will,  and  establishes 
the  fact  of   "righteousness   and   peace   and 


15-i  Laws  and  Counter  Laws. 
joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost."  Without  faith  the 
mind  is  without  an  intelligent  self-leader- 
ship, and  can  decide  upon  no  reasonable 
plan  of  efifort ;  neither  can  it  have  any  reason- 
able plan  for  any  effort,  to  do  it  knows 
not  and  believes  not  what.  Man  was  not 
made  to  project  his  way  through  this  world 
without  faith,  and  it  does  matter  what  men 
believe.  "  Buy  the  truth  and  sell  it  not." 
— Prov.  23-23. 

All  the  laws  of  nature  are  practically  om- 
nipresent ;  that  is,  we  know  of  no  place 
where  they  are  not.  If  we  take  the  law  of 
gravitation  and  start  out  to  find  some  place 
where  it  is  not,  our  search  will  be  in  vain. 
There  is  no  such  place.  The  whole  science 
of  Astronomy  is  based  on  the  universality  of 
the  law  of  gravitation.  The  planetary  worlds 
and  the  sidereal  heavens,  all  suns  and  moons 
and  stars,  wherever  we  see  them  in  the  uni- 
verse, give  prompt  and  exact  obedience  to 
the  law  of  gravitation.  They  are  all  subjects 
of  that  law.  All  eclipses  of  planets  and  stars 
are  calculated  and  predicted   for  thousands 


Laics  and  Counter  Laics.  155 
of  years  to  come  on  that  law.  But  gravita- 
tion is  a  dependent  law,  and  never  moves 
any  matter  that  is  not  prepared  for  its  hold 
upon  it  and  kept  in  order  so  to  continlie.  It 
never  acts  alone.  The  law  of  cohesion  is 
always  manifested  in  holding  the  atoms  to- 
gether in  solids  for  gravitation  to  take  on 
their  circuits  through  space.  So  these  two 
laws  are  never  manifested  separately. 
Neither  is  any  other  law  of  nature  manifest- 
ed alone.  The  presence  of  repulsion  is  im- 
plied wherever  cohesion  is  seen, and  cohesion 
must  hold  together  whatever  gravitation  is 
carrying  along  through  space.  So  there  are 
interdependeucies  of  many  kinds  all 
through  the  laws  of  nature,  and  a  fair 
deduction  will  concede  the  omnipres- 
ence of  the  whole  system  of  the  laws 
of  nature,  and  of  each  one  in  particular. 
There  is  no  place  where  the  law  is  not,  and 
its  manifestations  are  to  be  expected  where- 
ever  there  is  any  matter  to  receive  it— made 
ready  to  receive  it. 

The  presence  of  a  law  and   its  mauifesta- 


156  Laics  and  Counter  Laws. 
tious  are  two  distinct  things,  not  to  be  con- 
founded. A  law  against  stealing  may  ex- 
tend all  the  time  over  the  whole  State,  but 
its  presence  is  manifested  when  a  thief  is 
punished  for  his  crime,  in  whatever  part  of 
the  State  he  may  have  been  caught,  for  he 
could  not  steal  in  the  State  but  where  the 
law  forbade  it.  And  so  the  law  of  gravita- 
tion extends  throughout  the  universe,  and 
is  manifested  wherever  there  is  any  object 
or  matter  made  ready  to  receive  it.  Take 
matter  prepared  for  it  to  any  place  in  the 
universe,  and  you  will  find  the  law  there  as 
certainly  as  it  is  here.  Whenever  a  new 
world  is  rightly  conditioned  in  any  part  of 
space,  for  any  given  law  of  nature,  as  the 
law  of  gravitation,  that  law  is  present  and 
takes  its  new  burden  upon  just  the  same 
terms  as  all  other  previously  made  worlds 
have  been  taken,  and  with  infinitely  exact 
adjustments. 

The  laws  of  nature  regarded  as  acts  of  God, 
permeating  all  space  and  all  atoms  of  mat- 
ter throughout  the   universe,  teach   us  that 


Laws  and  Counter  Laws.  157 
our  Heavenly  Father's  plan  for  the  conduct 
of  this  and  all  other  worlds  is  a  plan  of  gov- 
■ernment  by  laws  ;  and  we  cannot  find  an 
atom  of  matter  anywhere  that  is  not  under 
infinite  and  omnipresent  laws,  even  in  the 
conditions  upon  which  atoms  of  matter  pass 
from  one  law  to  another. 

In  all  departments  of  divine  government 
whatever  is  prepared  for  a  higher  law  has  it. 
The  most  obvious  thing  in  the  material 
world  is  that  matter  always  goes  at  once 
■where  it  is  made  ready  to  go,  and  it  goes 
"there  under  the  infinite  force  that  enforces 
law.  When  you  would  fall  a  tree  to  the 
north  you  chop  it  on  the  north  side,  and 
■when  to  the  south  on  the  south  side,  and 
the  law  of  gravitation  is  present  there,  and 
the  unseen  in  nature  obeys  it  and  brings 
down  the  tree  on  the  side  you  prepared  it  to 
fall  ;  if  to  the  north  to  the  north  it  is,  and 
if  to  the  south  to  the  south  it  falls.  There 
is  no  fitful,  uncertain,  partial  and  unreliable 
law  in  all  the  divine  system  of  laws  revealed 


158       Laws    and    Counter    Laws. 

to  meu.     They   perform  what  they  promise 

without  respect  of  persous. 

Yet,  with  all  this,  a  special  providence  aud 
answers  to  prayers  are  both  reasonable  and 
natural.  Yea,  more  reasonable  than  they 
could  be  if  we  had  found  the  laws  of  nature 
in  material  atoms  variable,  and  given  to  ha- 
bitual discriminations.  For  now  our  prayer 
goes  not  to  the  laws,  but  to  "  our  Father 
which  art  in  Heaven,"  who  made  this  world 
with  all  its  faithful  laws  for  our  use  and  can 
make  another  if  there  is  any  need  of  it.  We 
have  these  laws  plus  God,  Himself  !  One  of 
the  Divine  methods  of  answering  prayer  is 
by  a  gracious  work  in  our  own  hearts,  by 
which  we  are  fitted  for  a  higher  law  of  trust 
in  Him,  and  thus  made  free  from  many 
anxieties  about  things  beyond  our  control. 
Our  faith  and  love  cast  out  fear.  We  offer 
no  dictation  to  Him,  but  try  to  render  a 
prompt  aud  faithful  performance  of  what  we 
believe  to  be  our  duties.  God  may  influ- 
ence us  or  some  other  person  and  leave  even 
an  enemy  disinclined  to  do   us  harm.     This 


Laics  and  Counter  Laics.  159 
we  know,  that  the  Creator  and  Author  of 
such  just  laws  must  be  able  and  willing  to 
answer  all  filial  prayer  that  goes  up  to  Him 
in  trust  of  His  word  and  love,  and  from 
hearts  hungering  and  thirsting  to  know  and 
to  do  His  own  Holy  Will.  Let  us  offer  all 
the  prayers  that  are  exactly  in  the  line  of 
■obedience  to  God  and  good  will  to  men  : 
"  To  do  good  and  to  communicate,  for  with 
^uch  sacrifices  God  is  well  pleased."— Heb. 
13-16. 

The  world  is  always  busy  with  the  prayers 
of  men  from  one  to  another  ;  and  the  idea 
that  He,  who  made  the  world,  cannot  an- 
swer a  reasonable  prayer  is  inconsistent  with 
perfection  of  character. 

There  is  a  manifest  law  of  prayer  between 
-God  and  men,  and  whenever  we  are  con- 
ditioned and  made  entirely  ready  for  any 
^iven  prayer,  it  will  be  heard  and  answered 
as  is  best  for  us.  "Prayer  tests,"  proposed 
to  the  praying  believers  in  God  by  people 
who  do  not  pray  themselves,  if  seriously  at- 
tempted, would  be  profane.     We  do  not  owe 


160  Laics  and  Counter  Laws. 
any  experiments  with  God  for  the  entertain- 
ment of  unbelievers.  Our  religion  should 
go  more  reverently  to  God,  and  our  good 
will  to  men  will  be  better  shown  by  a  man- 
lier dignity  of  character  toward  them,  while 
we  are  walking  humbly  with  God.  All 
Christians  have  evidence  of  answers  to  their 
prayers,  or  they  would  still  be  without  hope 
in  Christ ;  yet  Christians  are  second  to  none 
in  their  belief  of  the  universality  and  per- 
manency of  all  the  Divine  Laws. 

True  science  justly  claims  to  be  always  in 
accord  with  all  the  laws  of  nature,  but  true 
religion  claims  much  more— not  only  per- 
fect accord  with  all  the  laws  of  nature,  but 
with  all  the  laws  of  Divine  revelation  also. 
"  To  the  law  and  the  testimony,  if  they 
speak  not  according  to  this  word,  it  is  be- 
cause there  is  no  light  in  them." — Is.  8-20. 

No  finite  mind  may  be  able  to  tell  pre- 
cisely what  degree  of  moral  freedom  he  en- 
joys, or  what  is  possible  to  be  done  by  his  own 
self-agency.  We  all  know,  however,  that  the 
Divine  government  in  both  nature  and  reve- 


Laws  and  Counter  Laics.  161 
lation  is  calling  all  moral  beings  more  and 
more  earnestly  to  use  their  freedom  in  resist- 
ing evil  and  striving  more  earnestly  for  the 
attainment  of  the  highest  good.  At  every 
advanced  step  of  knowledge  new  fields  are 
opened,  with  fresh  motives  to  righteousness 
and  it  rewards  even  in  this  life.  But  the 
strongest  appeals  are  made  finally  to  the 
freedom  of  individuals  to  accept  the  redemp- 
tion provided  in  Christ.  Men  are  covenanted 
with  as  free  persons,  able  to  value  and  de- 
sire eternal  life  as  an  act  of  their  own  choice, 
and  no  provision  is  made  for  moving  heav- 
enward unwillingly,  no  call  for  bond  ser- 
vice. Christianity  makes  the  redeemed  the 
Friends  of  their  Lord  and  the  Children  of 
God.  It  is  freedom  of  will  as  well  as  right- 
eousness of  life  that  grades  believers  up- 
ward towards  the  perfect  will  of  God  in 
Christ  Jesus.  Freedom  and  righteousness 
are  inseparable  at  the  throne  of  the  universe 
in  our  Father's  House.  The  opposite  law  is 
not  only  away  from  God,  but  it  is  bondage 
and    sin,    increasingly   great   on   the  down 


162  Laws  and  Counter  Laws. 
grade.  The  contrast  is  unavoidable  in  the 
processes  of  law;  progressive  opposites  are 
towards  extreme  opposites.  The  opposite  to 
harmony,  freedom  and  righteousness  with 
God  is  bondage  to  sin,  and  somewhere  be- 
tween these  extremes,  ranged  along  the  op- 
posite ways,  are  all  the  self-acting  moral 
agents  in  the  world,  either  opposite  to  the 
love  of  God  and  receding  from  Him,  or  in 
the  love  of  God  and  advancing  toward  Him. 
Whoever  is  self-preparing  for  lower  laws  of 
morals  and  religion  is  moving  toward  sin 
and  bondage  in  the  chains  of  evil  habits. 
And  whoever  is  getting  ready  for  higher 
laws  by  repentance,  faith  and  love  to  God  is 
moving  towards  freedom  and  righteousness 
and  joy  in  the  Holy  Ghost,  being  more  and 
more  constrained  by  the  love  of  God. 

Thus  far  are  the  calls  and  warnings  that 
come  from  the  laws  of  nature  in  material 
things.  Science  is  based  on  their  permanency, 
sees  no  way  for  their  ending;  hence  they  will 
never  be  changed,  and  whatever  is  moving 
at  all  is  moving  towards  one   or   the   other 


Latvs  and  Counter  Laws.  163 
opposite  extreme.  The  finalities  of  all 
things  are  in  two  opposites  only,  and  be- 
tween them  there  is  a  great  gulf  fixed.  Luke 
16-26.  If  man  will  rise  higher  than  he  now  is, 
he  must  change  and  be  changed  so  as  to  con- 
form to  the  higher  laws  to  which  he  aspires, 
and  to  which  God  in  Christ  is  calling  him 
with  loving  entreaties.  "  Blessed  are  they 
which  do  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteous- 
ness, for  they  shall  be  filled."— Mat.  5-6.  It 
belongs  to  the  science  of  theology  and  relig- 
ion to  place  the  subject  of  the  higher  laws — 
the  Gospel  Laws— before  men,  and  to  help 
them  to  the  requisite  knowledge  of  the  way 
of  salvation,  the  way  of  repentance  toward 
God  and  faith  in  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  Let 
men  redeemed  from  sin  by  our  Divine  Re- 
deemer thenceforth  move  along  on  the  up- 
ward grade  of  life's  laws,  by  divine  helping, 
up  to  the  throne  of  the  Father's  House  of 
Many  Mansions.— John  14-2. 

One  thing  is  plain,  the  upward  way  is  not 
closed  to  any  except  those  who  will  not  pre- 
pare for   it.     Helping    to    keep    the   truth 


164  Laws  and  Counter  Laws. 
brighter  in  living  examples  is  a  work  iu 
which  all  the  good  in  the  world  may  be  en- 
listed iu  Holy  Enterprise.  Let  simple,  hon- 
est, universal  truth  be  the  rallying  call  to 
Christ  who  is  "The  way  and  the  truth  and 
the  life."— John  14-6.  And  whoever 
reaches  it  first  will  be  first  in  the  glorious 
presence  of  the  everlasting  throne  of  God, 
being  there  by  conformity  to  the  truth  of 
God  in  Christ  Jesus,  and  led  by  the  presence 
and  power  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  the  Comforter, 
in  His  mission  of  leading  us  iuto  all  truth. — 
John  16-13. 

There  are  all  along  the  upward  way  of 
freedom,  truth  and  righteousness  agencies 
in  the  form  of  personal  experiences,  repent- 
ance and  spiritual  awakenings,  as  well  as 
the  example  and  fellowship  of  many  in  like 
relationship  to  Christ.  They  are  all  work- 
ing to  assist  and  encourage  every  child  of 
faith  in  God  in  preparing  for  higher 
laws,  which  are  always  present  as 
fast  as  subjects  are  ready  to  obey  them  ; 
and   to   subjects  thus   moving  upward    all 


Laics  and  Counter  Laics.  1G5 
knowledge,  experience,  joys  and  sorrows, 
all  disappointments  and  trials,  are  favorable 
to  them  as  members  of  the  body  of  Christ. 
"All  things  work  together  for  good  to  them 
that  love  God,  to  them  who  are  the  called 
according  to  his  purpose,"  Rom.  8  28.  Then 
said  I,  **IvO,  I  come,  in  the  volume  of  the 
book  it  is  written  of  me,  I  delight  to  do  thy 
will,  O  my  God  ;  yea,  thy  law  is  within  my 
heart,"  Ps.  40  7,  8.  "For  Christ  is  the  end 
of  the  law  for  righteous^ness  to  every  one 
that  believeth,"  Rom.  104.  "Thanks  be 
unto  God  for  his  unspeakable  gift,"  2nd  Cor. 

915- 

Let  us  all  have  "repentance  toward  God 
and  faith  toward  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ." — 
Acts  20  21. 


''And  Adam  called  his  wife's  name 
Eve."  —Genesis,  3:20. 


BIBLE  OUTIylNES. 

CHAPTER    V. 

Bible  outlines  of  the  first  man^s  life  xmtilhe 
was  married. 

If  we  could  find  a  man  who  had  never 
been  a  child,  we  might  be  able  to  imagine 
that  the  first  man  was  never  a  child  ;  but  our 
imaginings  would  all  be  wrong,  and  the 
Bible  outlines  decidedly  against  us.  "  The 
first  man,  Adam,  was  made  a  living  soul  ; 
the  last  Adam  was  made  a  quickening 
spirit."— I  Cor.  15:45. 

Yet,  the  last  Adam  was  a  babe,  born  in  a 
manger  in  Bethlehem  of  Judea. — Luke,  2:7. 

No  living  thing  is  known,  or  has  ever  been 
known,  to  come  to  the  stature  of  a  plant,  or 
of  an  animal,  or  of  a  man,  without  growth* 
To  every  living  thing  God  made,  He  gave 
food  and   suitable  conditions    and    opportu 


168  Growth    and    Education, 

nity  for  growing,  and  the  making  of  each 
pair  of  all  living  things  antedated  their  grow- 
ing. Hence,  we  are  told  that  the  **  waters 
brought  forth,"  and  God  said:  "Let  the 
earth  bring  forth  the  living  creature  after 
his  kind,  and  cattle  and  creeping  thing  and 
beasts  of  the  earth  after  his  kind,  and  it 
was  so." — Gen.  1:24. 

And  to  prevent  misinterpretation,  and  that 
no  one  should  imagine  that  God  made  plants 
and  trees,  and  fowls  and  beasts,  all  grown 
up,  we  are  told,  respecting  them,  that  God 
made  them  "  before  they  were  in  the  earth 
and  before  they  grew.'''' — Gen.  2:4-5. 

And  man  was  not  an   exception,  but  was 

made  (male  and  female)  antecedent  to  his 
growth,  and  to  his  education,  and  to  his  re- 
ceiving the  breath  of  God  and  becoming  a 
"IvivingSoul."— Gen.  2:7. 

In  point  of  time  man  was  made  after  all 
other  creatures  of  earth,  and  yet  not  so 
remote  as  to  be  furnished  with  food  different 
from  theirs,  for  either  male  or  female.  And 
God  said  :     "  Behold  I  have  given  you  every 


Growth  and  Education.  169 
herb  bearing  seed,  which  is  upon  the  face  of 
all  the  earth,  and  every  tree,  in  the  which  is 
the  fruit  of  a  tree  yielding  seed,  to  you  it 
shall  be  for  meat  ;  and  to  every  beast  of  the 
earth,  and  to  every  fowl  of  the  air,  and  to 
every  thing  that  creepeth  upon  the  earth, 
wherein  there  is  life.  I  have  given  every 
green  herb  for  meat,  and  it  was  so." — Gen. 
1:29-30. 

Plainly,  therefore,  man's  food  was  earthly, 
and.  by  growing  on  such  food  he  was  formed 
out  of  the  earth,  as  all  the  animals  are  de- 
clared to  have  been. — Gen.  1-24  and  2-19. 
"And  out  of  the  ground  the  Lord  God 
formed  every  beast  of  the  field  and  every 
fowl  of  the  air,  and  brought  them  unto 
Adam  (not  before  they  were  grown)  to  see 
what  he  would  call  them  ;  and  whatsoever 
Adam  called  every  living  creature,  that  was 
the  name  thereof." — Gen.  2:19. 

Thus  it  is  easy  to  see  that  any  living  body 
that  is  growing  on  earthly  food  is  being 
formed  out  of  the  earth  and  out  of  the  "dust 
of  the  earth." 


170  Growth   and   Education. 

But  growing  is  always  a  process  requiring 
time.  Man  (male  and  female)  was  not  made 
and  grown  to  childhood,  and  school  days, 
and  graduation,  and  capacity  for  law,  and 
readiness  for  business  and  marriage,  and  the 
law  of  marriage  all  at  once.  And  there  is 
nothing  of  that  kind  implied  in  the  out- 
lines of  the  first  man's  life.  But  the  outline 
does  show  that  the  act  of  God,  by  which 
man  was  made  a  "living  soul,"  was  subse- 
quent to  his  creation. 

It  seems  to  have  been  in  the  part  of  his 
life  in  which  he  was  nearing  to  manhood. 
The  act  of  God  following  it  in  the  narrative 
was  the  planting  of  a  garden  eastward  in 
Eden,  where  he  put  the  mam  whom  he  had 
formed.— Gen.  2:8. 

Thus  far  from  the  beginning  of  Genesis  to 
the  i6th  verse  of  this  2ud  chapter,  we  have 
the  acts  and  words  of  God  independent  of 
auy  acts  and  words  of  man,  even  implied. 
But  now  and  henceforth  the  acts  and  words 
of  God  and  the  acts  and  words  of  man, 
spoken  or  implied,  are   so  intermingled   as 


Settlement  and  Marriage.  171 
to  require  careful  discrimination  to  see  upon 
whom  the  responsibility  of  anything  said  or 
done  rests.  Also  whenever  in  Genesis  two 
acts  of  God  are  connected  by  the  conjunc- 
tion "and,"  there  is  a  time  space  allow- 
able of  greater  or  less  length  ;  often  of  very 
great  length,  so  that  it  does  not  follow  that 
God  formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the  ground 
"and"  "breathed  into  his  nostrils  the 
breath  of  life,  and  man  became  a  living 
soul  ;"  that  this  was  all  synchronized.  The 
act  of  God  that  made  man  a  "  living  soul  " 
was  subsequent  to  his  creation  as  man. 
Gen.  I  :  27.  In  due  time  Adam  had  become 
master  of  a  copious  and  versatile  language 
and  the  time  had  come  for  him  to  assume 
all  the  responsibilities  of  manhood  and  of 
obedience  to  his  Maker.  He  was  placed  in 
Kden  in  a  home  surpassing  the  gooduess  of 
any  other  retreat  for  beauty,  comfort  and 
abundance.  God  made  ready  for  him  to  re- 
ceive the  knowledge  of  "an  helpmeet" 
which  hitherto  He  had  kept  from  him,  ex- 
cept by  promise;  "  I  will  make  him  an  help- 


172  Settlement  and  Marriage. 
meet."  i8  v.  The  female  had  been  brought 
up  separately  from  the  male  but  not  less 
liberally  or  suitably  educated.  Adam  was 
qualified  to  give  original  and  appropriate 
names  to  all  animals  and  to  other  things  as 
well,  demonstrating  the  excellency  of  his 
natural  and  acquired  abilities.  And  the 
female  was  not  less  of  an  exalted  nature  and 
accomplished  for  the  very  highest  earthly 
companionship  to  which  she  had  been  ap- 
pointed of  God,  and  was  "made"  manifest 
indue  time  and  God  "brought  h^r  to  the 
man."     Gen.  2  122. 

We  must  not  forget  or  omit  to  see  now 
and  henceforth  that  the  words  and  acts  of 
man  are  so  intermingled  with  the  words  and 
acts  of  God  as  to  give  a  divided  responsibility 
for  the  narrative  before  us  considered  as  a 
whole. 

Adam's  contribution  must  be  carefully 
considered.  Adam  said,  "  This  is  now  bone 
of  my  bone,  and  flesh  of  my  flesh."  This 
implies  that  he  takes  upon  himself  the 
responsibility  or  adoption  of  what  immedi- 


Settlement  and  3Iarria(je.  173 
ately  precedes  his  own  speech.  We  fiad 
good  evidence  that  God  did  uot  bring  the 
woman  to  Adam  until  he  had  provided 
suitably  for  them  both  in  Eden,  aud  was 
ready  to  see  them  married  aud  to  bestow  His 
blessing.  Adam  had  desired  a  helpmeet. 
And  if  we  suppose  the  exuberance  of  the 
human  imagination  in  its  pristine  state  and 
in  the  joy  of  receiving  "an  helpmeet." 

So  unexpectedly  and  suddenly  and  of  such 
surpassing  fitness  to  himself  could  enable 
him  to  account  for  the  Ivord's  bringing  a 
mate  to  him  by  the  way  of  such  a  unique 
process  of  manufacture  more  readily  than 
by  any  other  way.  Then  this  hard  part  of 
the  narrative,  this  metaphor,  this  rib  story, 
is  all  accounted  for,  and  Adam  is  responsible 
for  sending  down  to  us  this  enigmatical 
account  of  the  origin  of  woman.  Perhaps  he 
did  not  imagine  it  would  ever  be  interpret- 
ed literally.  No  Bible  writer  ever  recog- 
nized it.  Our  Saviour  wholly  disregarded 
it,  and  referred  directly  to  the  identical 
persons,    male   and   female,  that   God   first 


174:  Law   of  Marriage. 

made  as  the  actual  couple  that  are  now 
united  in  marriage.  If  there  was  any 
mystery,  he  has  brushed  it  aside  and 
made  the  occasion  of  that  first  marriage 
God's  time  of  giving  to  man  the  true  law  of 
marriage  for  all  men  and  for  all  time.  "And 
He  answered  and  said  unto  them,  '  Have  ye 
not  read  that  He  which  made  them  at  the 
beginning  made  them  male  and  female. 
And  said,  for  this  cause  shall  a  man  leave 
father  and  mother  and  shall  cleave  to  his 
wife  :  and  they  twain  shall  be  one  flesh  I 
Wherefore  they  are  no  more  twain  but  one 
flesh.  What  therefore  God  hath  joined  to- 
gether let  not  man  put  asunder.'  "  Matt^ 
19 :  4-6. 


«*  BIBLE    VIEWS    OF  CREATION." 

A  Response  to  Criticisms  of  the  Last 

Chapter   of   That    Work    by    its 

Author . 

REV.  GEORGE  R.  MOORE. 
(NO.    I.) 

Prof.  Wm,    Henry    Green^,    D.    D.,    of 
Princeton,  has  said  that  the  second  chapter 
of  Genesis  is  a  sequel  to  the  first.     This  is 
evidently  true  if  sequel  is  allowed  to  mean 
the  same  discourse  continued  in  the  direct 
line  of  saying  the  things  which  the   writer 
had  to  say  prior  to   reporting  the  fall    of 
man,  which   carried  him    forward   in  his 
discourse    into    the     third     chapter.     The 
second  is  an  indispensable   connective   of 
the  first   and   third  chapters   of   Genesis. 
The  first  chapter  treats  mainly  of  the   cre- 
ations of  God  which  are  or  may  be  known 
of  men,  and  the  second  has  some  explana- 
tory clauses  relating  to  the  first,  and  some 
also  relating  to  the   second,  but   its  main 
intent  forward  in  the  line    of  the  writer's 
gi-at  purpose  was  to   show   the   favor  of 
God  to  man  (Adam),  how  he  blessed   and 
exalted  him,  settled  him  in  Eden  and  mar- 
ried him   there,  and   conversed   with  him; 
and  the   third   chapter   treats    mainly   of 
man's  condition  iQ  Eden,  and  of  his   con- 
duct when  tried,  and  of  his  fall   and  con- 
demnation at  which  time  the  writer   gives 


the  initial  words  of  the  plan  of  salvation 
which  revelation  was  increased  from  time 
to  time  until  finally  completed  by  the  com- 
ing of  the  Messiah. 

No  logical  theology  Can  spare  the  sec- 
ond chapter  of  Genesis,  or  in  any  way  re- 
arrange it  so  as  to  make  it  less  emphatic 
than  it  now  is  respecting  man's  abilities 
and  spiritual  elevation  prior  to  the  very 
day  of  their  sin  against  God. 

To  understand  the  first  part  of  Genesis 
we  must  keep  clearly  in  mind  that  the  con- 
junction "and"  (Heb.  vav)  determines 
nothing  whatever  concerning  the  actual  or 
relative  time  of  the  independent  events 
which  it  grammatically  unites.  It  is  as  if 
one  should  say,  '*  Our  Lord  was  born  in 
Bethlehem,  *  and '  was  baptized  by  John 
the  Baptist."  This  "and"  does  not 
synchronize  his  baptism  and  birth,  which 
we  know  were  about  thirty  years  apart. 
Neither  does  the  word  "  and  "  in  Gen.  2:7 
synchronize  the  coming  of  man  from 
the  dust  of  the  ground  "and"  breathing 
into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life.  There 
is  nothing  in  this  language  to  exclude  a 
period  cf  time  quite  sufficient  for  God  to 
make  the  man's  body  mediately  by  its  grow- 
ing on  earthly  food.  Again,  in  the  19th 
verse  of  this  chapter  we  are  told,  "And 
out  of  the  ground  the  Lord  God  formed 
every  beast  of  the  field,  and  every  fowl  of 
the  air,  'and'  brought  them  to  Adam  to 
see  what  he  would  call  them."  There  is 
nothing  in  this  language  to  show  that  the 
bodies  of  all  those  animals  were  not  made 


out  of  the  ground  mediately ,  "and"  brought 
to  Adam  when  they  were  suitably  grown 
up  for  such  a  purpose. 

The  second  chapter  of  Genesis  does  not 
relate  the  original  creation  of  a  single  life 
of  any  kind  whatever.  God's  direct  and 
immediate  creations  of  life,  as  far  as  the 
writer  of  Genesis  intended  to  enumerate 
them  at  that  time,  are  all  specified  in  the 
first  chapter,  and  this  specification  includes 
man  (Adam),  both  male  and  female,  and 
tells  them  the  dominion  they  should  have 
in  the  animal  kingdom,  and  enjoins  the 
obligation  of  increase  and  of  replenishing 
and  subduing  the  earth,  and  of  receiving 
their  food  in  common  with  animals  from 
things  growing  and  bearing  fruit  upon 
the  earth,  and  thus  in  a  mediate  way,  by 
the  food  they  lived  upon,  their  bodies  were 
made  of  earth  and  of  the  dust  of  the  ground 
by  the  food  they  lived  upon,  given  them  of 
God  by  His  daily  providence.  God  cre- 
ated originally  all  Jives  of  every  kind,  each 
individual  life  with  a  capacity  to  make  its 
own  body  of  the  food  His  providence  gave 
to  it  for  that  purpose.  There  is  not  an 
organized  body  in  the  world  of  any  kind, 
plant,  animal  or  man,  that  has  any  other 
body  than  its  own  life  has  made  for  it. 

God  made  lives  with  power  to  work. 
All  lives  start  in  the  midst  of  food,  and  the 

!  first  work  of  lives  is  to  make  their  own 
bodies  out  of  the  food  around  them  aided 
only  by  their  Maker's  providence.  Medi- 
ately all  the  bodies  in  the  world   are  made 

i  of  God  out  of   the   earth,  but   immediately^ 


J 


not  one.  No  body  has  any  visible  exist- 
ence, or  is  commenced  until  its  own  life ' 
commences  it  in  what  is  almost,  if  not 
quite,  an  invisible  cell  to  which  other  cells 
are  drawn  and  growth  commences,  and 
body  building  thus  commenced  goes  on  i 
under  favorable  conditions  to  complete 
the  body  God  intended  each  life  to  have. 
Some  lives  bring  their  own  bodies  to  ma- 
turity in  one  day,  and  some  others  not  in 
a  thousand  years.  Man's  maturity  of 
body  may  be  reached  in  about  twenty 
years,  during  the  greater  part  of  which 
time  he  has  ©pportunities  for  growing  in 
wisdom  by  experience, as  well  as  in  stature 
by  food. 

If  the  first  human  pair  had  no  experi- 
ence of  growth  in  wisdom  and  stature,  they 
must  have  looked  upon  their  first-born 
children  as  an  unnatural  progeny,  with 
lives  and  bodies  coming  along  together 
growing,  though  their  parents  bodies  were 


made  full  size  and  *'did  not  grow,  nor  were 
they  made  by  any  process  of  development." 
Looking  upon  their  children  they  might 
ask,  "  If  the  plan  of  making  the  body  full 
size  first,  and  breathing  life  into  it  after- 
wards was  the  best  way,  why  was  it 
abandoned  ?  "  If  it  was  not  the  best  way, 
why  did  God  stultify  the  lives  of  the  first 
human  pair  by  withholding  from  them  the 
opportunity  of  growing  their  own  bodies  ? 
Of  growing  **  in  wisdom  and  stature" 
when  He  had  given  it  to  all  other  lives,  and 
determined  it  for  all  ages  to  come,    and  to 


every  atom  of  organized  matter  in  thg 
world?  Why  this  one  exception?  I  do 
not  find  such  an  exception  in  the  Bible, 
and,  I  confess,  the  picture  of  a  statue-made 
man  and  woman  as  parents  with  little 
children  growing  up  around  them  and 
prattling  their  little  observations  and  ex- 
periences to  them  as  parents  surpasses  my 
comprehension .  How  could  a  clay  statue 
be  in  the  image  of  God  ? 

But  I  read  the  seventh  verse  of  the  sec- 
ond chapter  of  Genesis  with  no  such 
thoughts  in  my  mind.  The  word  man 
may  be  slightly  misleading  because  in  the 
original  it  is  Adam,  the  only  Adam  there 
was,  and  of  course  the  Adam  named  in  the 
first  chapter. 

We  see  in  the  first  chapter  that  when- 
ever God  spoke  of  any  new  order  of  ani- 
mals He  made  lives  capable  of  making 
their  own  bodies.  If  He  wanted  fowls  He 
Jl  made  suitable  lives  for  them,  and  if  He 
wanted  cattle  He  made  suitable  lives  for 
cattle. 

It  is  not  the  modern  works  on  anatomy 
that  show  us  the  primal  cause  of  the 
many  orders  of  the  world's  animals,  but 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis.  Our  Lord 
received  little  children  ("Infants,"  Luke 
18:15)  and  blessed  them  lovingly,  and 
exalted  them  for  our  imitation  in  some 
important  respects.  And  we  cannot  think 
the  originals  of  our  nature  were  any  less 
lovingly  treated  by  him  in  whose  image 
they  were  made.  The  Divine  love  to 
them  of  the   Son   of   God   may   have   ex- 


eluded  the  ostensible  ministry  of  angels, 
but  could  not   have   excluded   any   of  the 

j  rights  of  their  own  human  nature,  includ- 
ing   all   the    experiences  and    growth    of 

I  childhood  and  youth.  Childhood  and 
youth  were  not  excluded  from  the  Messiah 
in  taking  our  nature,  neither  were  they  ex- 
cluded from  the  originals  of  the  human 
race,  innocent  and  beloved  of  Him  who 
has  become  our  Redeemer. 

I  (no.  ii.) 

I  know  that  God  is  making  7nediately  all 
human  bodies  of  the  earth,  and  the  bodies 
of  all  other  lives  of  the  earth  as  well,    and 


1  think  of  the  first  human  pair  as  afford- 
ing no  exception  to  this  plan  of  mediate 
creation  of  all  bodies.  Immediately  God 
made  the  lives  of  Adam,  male  and  female, 
and  mediately  he  made  their  bodies  of  earth 
as  they  grew  by  nourishment  from  earthly 
food.  Paul  speaks  of  our  "earthly  house," 

2  Cor.  5:1.  Paul's  earthly  house  was  one 
which  his  own  life  had  built  by  growing 
on  earthly  food 

The  Bible  regards  all  the  bodies  of  men 
as  of  the  "  dust  of  the  earth  "  just  as  much 
as  it  does  the  body  of  Adam.  Eccl.  3*.20, 
"  All  are  of  the  dust." 

Josephus  says  that  Adam  was  formed 
out  of  "  red  earth  compounded  together, 
for  of  that  kind  is  virgin  and  true   earth." 


(Antiq.  book  i,  Chap,  i,  Sec.  2.) 

Such  knowledge  is  wonderful.  "  Virgin 
earth!"  What  is  it  ?  Who  can  tell  ?  I 
am  glad  Josephus  did  not  write  the  Bible. 
It  would  then  have  been  vulnerable  to 
science  as  it  is  not  now. 

It  is  obvious  from  the  opening  chapters 
of  the  Bible  that  the  writer  intended  to  pass 
from  the  creation  of  all  former  things  to 
the  creation  of  man  in  the  image  of  God, 
and  then  to  close  the  records  of  the  original 
creations,  and  from  thence  to  pass  on  to 
the  exaltation  of  man  by  bestowment  of 
grace  and  Divine  companionship  and 
guidance  up  to  the  time  of  his  marriage 
and  afterwards,  and  as  briefly  as  pos- 
sible to  come  up  to  the  history  of  man's 
trial  and  fall  and  condemnation,  and  the« 
to  the  initiatory  words  of  the  revelation  of 
the  plan  of  redemption,  a  revelation  to  be 
enlarged  little  by  little  from  time  to  time, 
and  to  be  fulfilled,  in  the  predetermined 
time,  by  the  coming  of  the  Messiah. 

He  evidently  intended  to  lay  special 
emphasis  upon  the  institution  of  the  Sab- 
bath day,  also  to  make  the  marriage  of  the 
first  human  pair  a  notable  historical  and 
religious  event,  and  the  fit  time  for  the 
Divine  proclamation  of  the  law  of  mar- 
riage for  all  men  and  for  all  time. 

Let  us  consider  now  in  our  Lord's  re- 
port of  the  creation  of  the  first,  couple  and 
of  their  marriage,  how  He  places  His  seal 
upon  the  oneness  of  the  authorship  of  the 
first    and    second    chapters    of     Genesis. 


Note  carefully  his  words,  Matt.  191.4, 
"Have  ye  not  read,  that  He  which  mac'*^ 
them  at  the  beginning  made  them  male 
and  female"  (found  only  in  the  first  chap- 
ter) and  said,  "  For  this  cause  shall  a  man 
leave  father  and  mother,  and  shall  cleave 
to  his  wife,  and  they  twain  shall  be  one 
flesh."  (Found  only  in  the  second  chap- 
ter.) 

Hence,  whoever  would  pull  apart  the 
first  and  second  chapters  of  Genesis  must 
invalidate  Christ's  own  seal  by  which  they 
are  now  united,  and  the  Elohim  and  the 
Jehovah  Elohim  are  only  varied  names  of 
God  which  for  some  reason  the  author  of 
these  chapters  introduced  after  he  had  fin 
ishedthe  recital  of  ail  the  original  cre- 
ations and  was  about  to  introduce  Adam 
in  a  manner  more  special  and  close  in  his 
relations  to  God,  the  "  Lord  God." 

Let  us  now  return  to  Gen.  2:7,  where 
we  have  the  record  of  a  special  act  of 
Divine  grace  bestowed  upon  Adam.  "  And 
the  Lord  God  *  *  *  breathed  into  his 
nortrils  the  breath  of  life  and  Adam  became 
a  living  soul."  When  our  Lord  breathed 
upon  His  disciples,  and  said,  "  Receive  ye 
the  Holy  Ghost,"  John  20:22  ;  they  were  ' 
men  and  not  statues.  The  question  now 
is,  "What  was  Adam  before  he  became  a 
living  soul?"  And  the  text  itself  gives 
the  right  answer.  "  He  was  Adam,  not  a 
dead  form  of  clay,  but  a  man  capable  of 
being  advanced,  of  becoming  a  living  soul 
in  some  sense  more  exalted  than  he  was  1-°- 


fore,  filled  with  more  spiritual  life  and 
raised  to  a  higher  responsibility,  '  man  ' 
became  a  living  soul,"  Was  advanced  to 
a  higher  and  better  life,  spiritualized  and 
raised  to  such  a  degree  of  moral  and  re- 
ligious responsibility,  and  sympathy  and 
love     to    God^     that      it      was     possible 


for  him  to  sin  against  God  by  unbelief,  as 
the  highest  and  noblest  of  animals  with 
all  their  fullness  of  life,  animal  life,  could 
not  do. 

We  have  already  seen  how  Adam's  body 
was  formed  out  of  the  dust  of  the  ground, 
but  the  question  is  repeated,  "  What  was 
it  that  became  a  living  soul?"  And  I 
answer  again,  it  vjas  not  Adam's  body. 
His  body  never  became  a  living  soul.  Our 
text  says  it  was  man  (Adam),  and  "  Adam 
became  a  living  soul."  This  is  one  ot  the 
specifications  in  the  line  of  proofs  of  God's 
exaltation  of  the  first  Adam  (male  and  fe- 
male), but  we  must  take  all  that  is  said  of 
him  and  of  them  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Genesis.  There  they  are  told  what  their 
place  is  in  the  animal  kingdom.  They 
were  blessed  of  God  and  told  to  be  fruitful. 
By  that  act  of  God  this  first  couple  were 
affianced  to  each  other,  for  both  received 
the  commandment.  And  in  due  time  the 
Lord  God  presented  this  woman  to  this 
man  and  married  them  in  Eden,  and  there 
proclaimed  the  laws  of  marriage.  An- 
othei  specification  of  the  way  the  Lord* 
God  exalted  the  first  man  was  by  personal 
interviews.     That  He  gave  him  all  the  care 


desirable  is  shown  by  the  conversation's 
reported, and  duties  and  exercises  assigned 
to  him.  God  brought  the  animals  to  him 
to  see  what  he  would  call  them.  He  pro- 
vided Eden  for  him,  and  put  him  in  it  to 
keep  it  and  to  dress  it.  There  seems  to 
have  been  nothing  withheld  from  the  exalted 
couple,  most  happy  in  their  lives,  but  the 
fruit  of  one  tree  as-  a  test  of  their  obedi- 
ence. They  enjoyed  the  Lord's  social  in- 
terviews in  their  beautiful  home  until  the 
very  day  of  their  disobedience  to  Him. 
By  Divine  grace  and  favor,  and  personal 
influence  and  sympathy  they  had  become  ex 
alted  far  above  their  created  state.  By  crea- 
tion alone  they  were  human,  but  they  could 
be  human  without  the  highly  intelligent, 
moral  and  spiritual  elevation  God  graci- 
ously bestowed  upon  them  after  their  cre- 
ation, and  it  is  mainly  of  this  grace  and 
favor  to  man  that  the  second  chapter  of 
Genesis  is  concerned    in    showing. 

The  writer  of  Genesis  relates  the  creation 
of  man  in  the  first  chapter.  His  exaltation 
and  marriage  in  >he  second,  and  his  fall 
and  condemnation  in  the  third.  And  he 
shows  plainly  that  man's  fall  was  down- 
ward, and  not  as  some  are  telling  us  in 
our  days,  that  the  "  fall  of  man  was  up- 
wards." The  fall  related  in  Genesis  was 
downward,  and  from  such  a  condition  the 
beginning  of  the  revelation  of  the  plan  of 
salvation  has  respect.  Let  us  not  now  by 
unbelief  fail  of  this  completed  fulfillment 
of  the  plan  of  redemption  by  our  Lord  and 
Saviour  Jesus  Christ. 


/o 


